A government watchdog agency has taken the US Department of Homeland Security to task for failing to adequately protect the nation's critical computer networks in a report that singles out the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team.

In a hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday, a member of the Government Accountability Office said US-CERT should do a better job of monitoring network activity "for anomalies to determine whether they are threats, warning appropriate officials with timely and actionable threat and mitigation information, and responding to the threat," according to Nextgov. He also criticized US-CERT for weaknesses identified during a 2006 cybersecurity drill.

A draft report issued by the GAO, and reported here by BusinessWeek, is considerably harsher. It claims US-CERT "lacks a comprehensive baseline understanding of the nation's critical information infrastructure operations, does not monitor all critical infrastructure information systems, does not consistently provide actionable and timely warnings, and lacks the capacity to assist in mitigation and recovery in the event of multiple, simultaneous incidents of national significance."

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