The Government Accountability Office has called on the Department of Energy to track and report the actions it has taken in response to independent reviewers’ findings and suggestions to help fully implement the Insider Threat Program.
DOE should come up with a process to better integrate insider threat responsibilities, assess the program’s human, technical and financial resource requirements and offer recommendations to the department’s secretary on where resources should be allocated to ensure that the program is positioned to meet minimum standards, GAO said in a report published Wednesday.
“Unless DOE identifies and assesses the resources needed to support the Insider Threat Program, it will be unable to fully ensure that components are equipped to respond to insider threat concerns, potentially creating vulnerabilities in the program,” the GAO report reads.
The congressional watchdog recommended that the Insider Threat Program’s senior official clearly define the responsibilities of contractors in the initiative and that the DOE secretary ensure that the program implements a departmentwide approach to handling insider risk.
In 2014, DOE launched the Insider Threat Program as part of efforts to ensure the security of the country’s nuclear weapons systems and related information.
