Reflective of the alarming number of the threats to federal systems, agencies are reporting a trend of increasing waves of cybersecurity breaches. These incidents put sensitive information at risk. Personally identifiable information about Americans has been lost, stolen, or improperly disclosed, thereby potentially exposing those individuals to loss of privacy, identity theft, and financial crimes. Reported cyber attacks and unintentional incidents involving critical infrastructure systems demonstrate that a serious cyber attack could be devastating. Agencies have experienced a wide range of incidents involving data loss or theft, computer intrusions, and privacy breaches, underscoring the need for improved security practices. When incidents occur, agencies are to notify the federal information security incident center—US-CERT. As shown in the figure “Cyber Incidents Reported to US-CERT in 2006 - 2008, estimates 2009 -2010″, the number of incidents reported by federal agencies to US-CERT has increased dramatically over the past 3 years, increasing from about five thousand incidents reported in fiscal year 2006 to almost seventeen thousand incidents in fiscal year 2008 (about a 200% increase).
Incidents are categorized by US-CERT as following:
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