A majority of federal cyber security leaders surveyed believe that a new cyber threat monitoring program being managed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for federal civilian networks is being rolled out too slowly, according to the results of a study performed by MeriTalk.
Nearly 60 percent of respondents believe that the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program phases are being rolled out too slowly while 51 percent believe that the task orders awarded under CDM contract are being processed in a timely fashion to support deployment of the first phase solutions, says the study, CDM: Under The Hood. MeriTalk, which is a public-private partnership of information technology professionals, interviewed 152 federal cyber security and CDM leaders for the study.
A potential $6 billion CDM contract was awarded last August to 17 companies and earlier this year the first task order, worth $60 million, was split between four of the firms.
The program requires network checks for intrusions at least every 72 hours but 90 percent of security managers want the checks within a day, the report says.
The report, released on Monday, says that a vast majority of federal security managers are pleased though about the CDM program overall for its “variety of benefits, including risk assessment and mitigation opportunities,” adding that they expect decision making around cyber threats to improve as will the “overall culture of risk management in government.”
Nearly 97 percent of respondents say they have meat an April 30 deadline to identify individuals within their agencies to manage their respect Information Systems Continuous Monitoring program and identified resource and skills gaps, the study says. It also says nearly 88 percent of agencies have begun to deploy products to support ISCM of all system and are operating in accordance with federal requirements.
The report follows comments last week by Alan Paller, director of Research for the SANS Institute, who says CDM needs to move from being a monitoring solution to threat mitigation to provide active protection against intrusions.