The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that some federal agencies had “conflicting parameters” for their cybersecurity requirements for ensuring the secure access and use of government data.
GAO said in its report released Wednesday that it assessed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Social Security Administration (SSA) and FBI as part of its study and found that the total amount of conflicting parameters among the four agencies reached 49 to 79 percent.
Such parameters include specific values such as the number of unsuccessful logins needed before locking out users.
According to the watchdog, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) must improve its coordination efforts to properly establish cybersecurity parameters among federal agencies.
GAO noted that federal entities previously reported spending $45 million on assessments of state agencies' cybersecurity posture during fiscal years 2016 through 2018.