Federal Network Security Breaches Jump 650% in Five Years

eWeek: A new report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) says that federal agencies are not doing a good job of preventing security breaches. According to the report, federal agencies experienced 41,776 security incidents in 2010, up from 5,503 in 2006, for a 650 percent increase. “Of the 24 major agencies, none had fully or effectively implemented an agency-wide information security program,” wrote the report’s author, Gregory C. Wilshusen.

The most common type of security incident was malware infections, which accounted for 30 percent of all the attacks documented. The report also called out the IRS for not limiting employee access to databases, a problem which greatly increased insider threats.