Ft. Huachuca Does It Manually

Most technologically advanced organizations monitor and log traffic on network servers automatically. That's not the case at the Army's Fort Huachuca in Arizona.

Huachuca, home to the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command -- two outfits that should be no strangers to network technology -- has a contract on the street to automate server logging, including real-time analysis of events on servers at the post controlled by the director of information management.

Why? Well, according to contract documents, "there is no system in place to do this. The only method available to the DOIM is to manually monitor and analyze events logged on a server by server basis. This is very time consuming and manpower intensive."

I'll say. Ft. Huachuca's servers have millions of log files that comprise terabytes of data on events that happen on hardware such as switchers, routers and hubs, and anti-virus and database software.

I'm not a network or security expert, but do know enough to understand that monitoring what happens on all this stiff is a good way to find out if bad guys are trying to bad things top a network.

Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said he found it "mind-boggling" that Ft. Huachuca was monitoring its servers manually. "The time to upgrade was maybe a decade ago. But better late than never."