A SecurityScorecard report indicates that the U.S. government lags behind 17 private industries such as the healthcare, transportation and retail sectors when it comes to cyber hygiene and reaction time to data breaches.
The company said Thursday it analyzed 35 breach incidents that occurred across 600 federal, state and local agencies from April 2015 to April 2016 as part of its security risk benchmarking study.
Agencies that received low security scores in the study have faced challenges related to network security, malware infections and software patching cadence, the report states.
“The data we uncovered clearly indicates that while some are improving their security postures, too many are leaving themselves dangerously exposed to risks and vulnerabilities, especially at the larger federal level,” noted Luis Vargas, data scientist at SecurityScorecard.
According to the company, NASA performed the worst among all agencies examined during the study.
Other low-performing organizations mentioned in the report include the State Department as well as the information technology departments of the states of Connecticut, Washington and Pennsylvania alsoÂ