http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/obama-talks-cybersecurity-but-federal-it-systems-breaches-increase/ By David Kravets Ars Technica Jan 20, 2015 Update: This post was updated Tuesday evening to reflect comments the president made during his State of the Union address: President Barack Obama urged Congress and the American public to embrace cyber security legislation during his State of the Union address Tuesday evening. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, known as CISPA, was unveiled by Obama a week ago and is controversial because it allows companies to share cyber threat information with the Department of Homeland Security—data that might include their customers’ private information. “No foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to shut down our networks, steal our trade secrets, or invade the privacy of American families, especially our kids. We are making sure our government integrates intelligence to combat cyber threats, just as we have done to combat terrorism. So tonight, I urge this Congress to finally pass the legislation we need to better meet the evolving threat of cyber-attacks, combat identity theft, and protect our children’s information. That should be a bipartsan effort. If we don’t act, we’ll leave our nation and our economy vulnerable. If we do, we can continue to protect the technologies that have unleashed untold opportunities for people around the globe,” the president said without identifying his CISPA proposal and others by name. New research out earlier Tuesday from George Mason University, however, calls into question how effective Obama’s proposal would be. That’s because the federal government’s IT professionals as a whole have “a poor track record in maintaining good cybersecurity and information-sharing practices.” What’s more, the federal bureaucracy “systematically” fails to meet its own federal cybersecurity standards despite billions of dollars in funding. According to a paper by Eli Dourado, a George Mason research fellow, and Andrea Castillo, manager of the university’s Technology Policy Program: […]