iTnews
  • Home
  • News
  • Technology
  • Security

Treasury report: IRS email systems insecure

By Ericka Chickowski on Aug 16, 2006 10:31PM

A new report released last week found that the majority of employees working for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) abuse the agency's email service.

Released by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the report found that a whopping 74 percent of IRS employees had email in their inboxes that violated the IRS personal use policy for email. Some of the offending messages included chain letters, jokes and offensive and sexually explicit content.

"While the IRS has conducted awareness presentations and distributed communications to encourage employees to comply with its personal use policy, it does not effectively monitor the email of its employees to ensure compliance with the policy," the report said.

Also included in the report were the results of a random sampling of 28 of the agency's 228 email servers. Inspectors found that these servers had more than 700 security vulnerabilities that could disrupt IRS operations. The majority of these were a result of poor patch management.

"The majority of the security vulnerabilities on the email servers cited above occurred because system administrators had not installed current security patches to the email servers," the report said.

In addition, the inspection of IRS email systems found thousands of IP-addressable devices serving as unofficial email servers—approximately 4,913 in all.

Inspectors warned that such flagrant disregard of agency policies combined with vulnerabilities in IRS email systems and an overabundance of ad-hoc servers put the entire IRS IT infrastructure at risk. According to the report, the Treasury Inspector General is working with IRS technical staff to fix these problems.

Got a news tip for our journalists? Share it with us anonymously here.
Copyright © SC Magazine, US edition
Tags:
emailinsecureirsreportsecuritysystemstreasury

Partner Content

Security: Understanding the fundamentals of governance, risk & compliance
Promoted Content Security: Understanding the fundamentals of governance, risk & compliance
"We're seeing some good policy put in place, but that's the exception"
Partner Content "We're seeing some good policy put in place, but that's the exception"
Avoiding CAPEX by making on-premise IT more cloud-like
Promoted Content Avoiding CAPEX by making on-premise IT more cloud-like
How to turn digital complexity into competitive advantage
Promoted Content How to turn digital complexity into competitive advantage

Sponsored Whitepapers

Extracting the value of data using Unified Observability
Extracting the value of data using Unified Observability
Planning before the breach: You can’t protect what you can’t see
Planning before the breach: You can’t protect what you can’t see
Beyond FTP: Securing and Managing File Transfers
Beyond FTP: Securing and Managing File Transfers
NextGen Security Operations: A Roadmap for the Future
NextGen Security Operations: A Roadmap for the Future
Video: Watch Juniper talk about its Aston Martin partnership
Video: Watch Juniper talk about its Aston Martin partnership

Events

  • Micro Focus Information Management & Governance (IM&G) Forum 2022
  • CRN Channel Meets: CyberSecurity Live Event
  • IoT Insights: Secure By Design for manufacturing
  • Cyber Security for Government Summit
By Ericka Chickowski
Aug 16 2006
10:31PM
0 Comments

Related Articles

  • NSW Treasury, Department of Customer Service to merge cyber security teams
  • Parliament now blocking 82 percent of email impersonation attempts
  • Config error left 190 Australian organisations open to phishing attacks
  • FBI email infrastructure hijacked to send out fake messages
Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn Share on Whatsapp Email A Friend

Most Read Articles

Qantas calls time on IBM, Fujitsu in tech modernisation

Qantas calls time on IBM, Fujitsu in tech modernisation

Service NSW hits digital services goal two years early

Service NSW hits digital services goal two years early

NBN Co taking orders for 'non-premises' connections

NBN Co taking orders for 'non-premises' connections

NSW Police scores $100m to connect body-cams to firearms, tasers

NSW Police scores $100m to connect body-cams to firearms, tasers

Digital Nation

The security threat of quantum computing
The security threat of quantum computing
Integrity, ethics and board decisions in the digital age
Integrity, ethics and board decisions in the digital age
COVER STORY: Operationalising net zero through the power of IoT
COVER STORY: Operationalising net zero through the power of IoT
IBM global chief data officer on the rise of the number crunchers
IBM global chief data officer on the rise of the number crunchers
Crypto experts optimistic about future of Bitcoin: Block
Crypto experts optimistic about future of Bitcoin: Block
All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in any form without prior authorisation.
Your use of this website constitutes acceptance of nextmedia's Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.