Page 31 - FCW, June/July 2021

Army rolls back short-lived telework policy on IoT devices
of the federal government’s major IT investments are considered high risk
The letter comes at a time when the maximum telework policies instituted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pan- demic are morphing into an enduring norm for government workers even as vaccination rates rise and local restric- tions are being lifted.
The proposed vulnerabilities assess- ment would also look at the security of virtual private networks and collabora- tion tools such as Cisco Webex, Slack, Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Mean- while, DOD is rolling out permanent replacements for the Teams-based Commercial Virtual Remote environ- ment it developed at the start of the pandemic.
— Lauren C. Williams
The Army has rescinded a policy that sought to prevent data leaks by restricting the use of internet-of-things devices, such as smart TVs and smart watches, in telework spaces.
The Army had announced the poli- cy in a now-deleted Twitter post that linked to a memo dated May 25. The post stated that the policy was intend- ed to “mitigate data leakage of official government information” and outline conditions that would enable Army per- sonnel to protect Defense Department information and systems.
Jason Waggoner, an Army spokes- man, told FCW that the memo has been removed because “the policy is not in effect and additional
staffing actions are required.”
The short-lived policy reflects a growing push for increased cyberse- curity on government networks and systems amid large-scale intrusions, such as the attacks launched via the SolarWinds Orion Platform and Micro-
soft Exchange Server.
In a June 2 letter, leaders of the
House Oversight and Reform Commit- tee asked DOD’s inspector general and other watchdogs across government to conduct a cyber vulnerabilities assess- ment with a specific focus on the “use of remote-access software to facilitate telework during the coronavirus pan- demic and whether such vulnerabilities were effectively mitigated.”
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