Call us now:
There’s a tipping point somewhere, one is not sure when and where, but when you run systems that are 60 years old, the inevitable will happen. On one hand we see repeated reports highlighting the issues Federal government face with IT and the need for systems modernization, on the other regulated cybersecurity risk management. Whatever happened to the FISMA audit?
Legacy systems are the bane of cybersecurity, they are costly to maintain, costly to secure, and begin brutally honest those that coded them are departing the mortal coil of employment and life quicker than not. It reminds me of challenges Japanese banks faced in the 2000’s when DK, IBJ and Fuji bank merged to form Mizuho. I experienced the systems architecture at first hand and the challenges of securing it across the corporate bank. Integrating on market derivative trades and annual swift updates in to a GL that was +30 years old.
The IRS seems to have a problem, it has to replace key systems that are over 60 years old. Even the joke that they can’t be hacked because no one know how falls away when you cannot find anyone to code them or a hardware platform for them to run. Although I have seen organisations solider batteries onto mother boards as they could no longer buy mainframe spares from ebay. (https://lnkd.in/ejq-hYRC)
Lets not forget after all, steam engines did make way to diesel then electric, bi planes to mono planes and the internal combustion engine to electric. The difference is today we live in a digitally enabled interconnected world and cybersecurity is a paramount activity. The IRS has to move quicker along the road, develop new tech, address new threats and deliver cybersecurity, or continue to live with efficiency, cost and obsolescence. Both are expensive.
Ted Dziekanowski
#cybersecurity #cyberriskmanagement #irs #it #gao
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