OMB Issues Network Security Guidance to Agenices

The Office of Management and Budget has given agency chief information officers new guidance on installing software to continuously monitor the security of their networks by the end of fiscal 2012, Federal News Radio reported Wednesday.

As part of the administration's annual IT budget passback guidance, which was obtained by FNR, agencies are also instructed to use the CyberScope reporting tool to submit standard data on the health of their IT systems by Sept. 30. Homeland Security is supposed to issue guidance for exporting data to CyberScope later this year.

Continuous monitoring, which requires security evaluations on an ongoing basis in real time or near real time, presents a major challenge for agencies, the report noted. Many agencies now conduct such monitoring only a few times a year.