http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1152AP_DHS_Computer_Security.html<b>DHS acknowledges own computer break-ins</b>

WASHINGTON -- The Homeland Security Department, the lead U.S. agency for fighting cyber threats, suffered more than 800 hacker break-ins, virus outbreaks and other computer security problems over two years, senior officials acknowledged to Congress.

In one instance, hacker tools for stealing passwords and other files were found on two internal Homeland Security computer systems. The agency's headquarters sought forensic help from the department's own Security Operations Center and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team it operates with Carnegie Mellon University.

In other cases, computer workstations in the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration were infected with malicious software detected trying to communicate with outsiders; laptops were discovered missing; and agency Web sites suffered break-ins.

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said such problems undermine the government's efforts to encourage companies and private organizations to improve cyber security.

"What the department is doing on its own networks speaks so loudly that the message is not getting across," Thompson said.

Congressional investigators, expected to testify Wednesday during an oversight hearing about the department's security lapses, determined that persistent weaknesses "threaten the confidentiality, integrity and availability of key DHS information and information systems," according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office being released later in June.

The Homeland Security Department's chief information officer, Scott Charbo, assured lawmakers his organization was working to prevent such problems.

"We need to increase our vigilance to ensure that such incidents do not happen again," Charbo wrote in testimony prepared for Wednesday's hearing. "The department takes these incidents very seriously and will work diligently to ensure they do not recur."

The computer problems disclosed to the House Homeland Security subcommittee occurred during fiscal 2005 and fiscal 2006, and occurred at DHS headquarters and many of the department's agencies, including TSA, the Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Customs and Border Protection and others.

The subcommittee's chairman, Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., said break-ins to government computer networks and theft of information are "one of the most critical issues confronting our nation, and we must deal with this threat immediately."

All the problems involved the department's unclassified computer networks, although DHS officials also have acknowledged to lawmakers dozens of incidents they described as "classified spillage," in which secret information was improperly transmitted or discussed over nonsecure e-mail systems.It would be funny if we weren't paying these jokers $43 billion a year for their incompetence. (Next year's budget is $46 billion of course, because of all those terrorists they supposedly protect us from.)

This is because they "save money" by hiring the cheapest labour they can for the job. They hire on Mr. Colme's son who once used a computer while taking business classes at the community college to do their security.

At the other extreme, you sometimes get the case where the government's IT department is made up of people who have a computer but don't understand how it works or its security features, so they knee jerk and fix it so you can't actually do anything at all with the computer. That's the system we have where I work. It is largely useless. I have my own laptop to actually do work with.

You get what you pay for. Those millions aren't going to IT security. Its probably beuracratic overhead and department heads. Actually, contractors don't get paid a lot, so its probably just the overhead.