Defense Department IT Professionals Rank Internal Cybersecurity Threats as Top Hazard

A cybersecurity survey of federal information technology (IT) professionals revealed that 53 percent of the U.S. Defense Department IT professionals polled tagged careless and untrained insiders as their top cybersecurity threat source, a hazard that topped threats from foreign governments—with 48 percent of the vote—and terrorists—31 percent. Overall, federal government respondents said that attacks and threats by malicious intruders and careless and untrained insiders are the leading dangers to their agencies’ computers and networks, according to the industry-funded survey. Fifty percent of the polled IT professionals reported external hacking as the top cybersecurity threat, with malware coming in second place with 46 percent of respondents pinpointing that issue as a lead concern.

In January and February, samplers conducted the blind, online cybersecurity survey among 200 federal government IT decision makers and influencers in 20 federal departments and offices, including four military services.

Forty percent reported budget constraints as the most significant, high-level obstacle to maintaining or improving IT security, and 63 percent noted that a lack of money is IT managers’ biggest frustration.

SolarWinds survey conducted the survey in conjunction with Market Connections.