U.S. Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, welcomed the finding’s of the Office of Management and Budget’s Fiscal Year 2015 annual report that evaluated the implementation of the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) by federal agencies on Friday.
The reports revealed that the updated FISMA form has allowed for greater specialization by the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget and reduced the redundancy in both organization’s roles in ensuring the government’s overall cyber security.
The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014, which was originally introduced by Carper and then-Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK.), was designed to effectively update the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 to adequately address critical issues that have developed in the 12 years since the act passed.
“As threats posed we face from cyber-attacks continue to evolve and grow every day, it is as important as ever that federal agencies implement FISMA to better insulate their networks from potential harm,” Carper said. “I am pleased that some federal agencies appear to have made substantial progress in meeting the requirements of the law, but this report makes it clear that there is still much work to be done. In both 2014 and 2015, Congress made important legislative updates to boost federal network security. Now the ball is in the agencies’ court to fully implement.”