Intellectual Property Law

Patricia Titus, chief information security officer for the Transportation Security Administration, is leaving the TSA next month to take a job with Unisys, a Department of Homeland Security and TSA contractor.

This might strike some people as odd, given that, as the Washington Post reported last year, Unisys is currently under FBI investigation for criminal fraud for failing to protect the DHS computer network from intrusions.*

Unisys won a $1 billion contract with the DHS in 2002 to secure and manage the IT network for the DHS and TSA but, according to congressional investigators, failed to properly install and manage intrusion detection systems on the networks then allegedly falsely certified to the DHS that the network had been protected to cover up its neglect.

Investigators found that Unisys failed to take action on intrusions to the network for three months beginning in June 2006. According to a Washington Post story last year, a Unisys employee had detected a possible intrusion but downplayed it. Low-level DHS security managers ignored it until two DHS systems managers noticed in September that their machines had been accessed by a hacking tool. The intrusions, on 150 computers, were traced to a Chinese-language web site for hackers. The hackers cracked the password of a network administrator "who had privileges to modify key system files on thousands of computers on the DHS network" and were stealing data and sending it to the Chinese site all the while that Unisys was certifying to the government that its network was secured.

But Unisys isn't the only party with a lax security record. Last year the TSA, while under Titus's watch, was found to have serious security issues with the online system it provided for airline passengers to seek redress if they encountered problems flying due to their name appearing on a watchlist.

*Unisys has disputed some of the claims in the Washington Post article.

(Hat tip: InfoSec News)

See Also:

• DHS Appoints Cybersecurity Official with Poor Security Record
• FBI Investigates DHS Contractor for Failing to Protect Gov't Computers
• TSA Lost Sensitive Data on 100,000 Employees
• DHS Security Chief Dismisses Congress's Hacking Questions
• Homeland Security Website Hacked by Phishers? 15 Signs Say Yes