As we get closer to Tax Day on April 17th (two extra days this year!), a bit of shocking news has come out about the computers at the IRS. Brought to my attention by the TaxProf Blog, a new audit shows that fully 34% of the computers at the IRS are not properly running their intrusion detection software. See the story here.
This is more of a security issue than a backup issue, but of course if intruders can get into those computers they are free to delete files, reformat drives, etc. Would the IRS be able to effectively recover that information if lost?
The report itself doesn’t address backup issues, but it does say the following: “Incident response policies, plans, and procedures are either nonexistent or are inaccurate and incomplete.”
That doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence! And this isn’t the first time security problems have been reported at Internal Revenue.
I’d imagine that the IRS is taking data protection seriously, and hopefully they are confident in their ability to protect and recover the extremely critical information they maintain. If not and they need some advice…they certainly know where to find me!
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