The Government Accountability Office identified 11 of the most critical legacy systems across 10 federal agencies.
In its recent review, the congressional watchdog also found that only three agencies have documented modernization plans that include best practices for their aging technologies.
Federal Legacy IT Challenges
According to GAO, eight of the 11 most critical federal legacy systems identified in the report have outdated languages, seven have known cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and four have unsupported hardware or software.
For instance, the office found that the Environmental Protection Agency is operating a system with hardware no longer supported by its manufacturer and has known cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
Meanwhile, Department of the Treasury systems in the list run on Common Business Oriented Language, or COBOL, and Assembly Language Code. The watchdog warned that people who know COBOL and Assembly Language Code are dwindling in numbers.
GAO also found that agencies had modernization plans for nine of the 11 systems. Of the modernization plans, only three included all key elements, namely, milestones, description of necessary work, and summaries of planned disposition. The two systems without plans are owned by the departments of defense and energy.
The watchdog warned that failure to document modernization plans could lead to cost overruns, schedule delays and project failure. Failure to update legacy systems would be especially detrimental because it would expose agencies to performance issues and security threats.
GAO called on Congress to require agencies to develop modernization plans for the legacy systems identified in the report.
