As we close out 2012, it appears that the Feds will be making an early New Year’s resolution – proactive reformation of their network security and monitoring.
According to a spokesman at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a Request for Proposal (RFP) for continuous monitoring of IT assets and data will be put out by the department in the near future. The application of a secure, total Business Service Management (BSM) solution, while currently only at DHS, is being planned to spread across the entire government.
What makes this new movement unique is its somewhat surprising planned method of implementation. To ensure maximum effectiveness, experts have called for a decentralized deployment of solutions, appealing to the idea of tailoring to the different digital environments of the various agencies. Expert professionals conclude since agencies handle different data for different needs, it only makes rational sense to have solutions ideal for the specific environment. However for an area which has preached consolidation and centralization polices over the past few years, the approach of specific solutions is of new flavor.
The Obama administration plans to draw up an executive order detailing the standards for securing government data. As such this proactive pilot BSM implementation at DHS could be an early start to a government technology overhaul.
