The Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General has found that while the agency’s Office of Information Technology enforced proper mobile security measures, there were certain issues in the fortification of its network infrastructure.

The IG report, released on Tuesday, states that OIT didn’t address vulnerabilities in configuration management and failed to implement blacklisting procedures for mobile applications that could lead to malicious attacks and loss of data to unsafe cloud environments.

According to the audit team’s findings, OIT doesn’t implement configuration management tools to handle automated updates for mobile devices and applications. The Government Accountability Office’s Federal Information System Controls Audit Manual states that such controls “provide reasonable assurance that changes to information system resources are authorized and systems are configured and operated securely and as intended.”

The OIT director of mobile technology and endpoint security engineering noted that the office didn’t implement blacklisting due to the amount of workload associated with the vetting process.

OIT handles over 50,000 VA devices through a centralized, enterprise-wide Mobile Device Management system.

The Department of Interior intends to purchase a new cloud-based system for the management of electronic records. DOI said Monday in a FedBizOpps notice it plans to procure this system from a commercial company on a software-as-a-service basis.

The department aims to fully transition electronic records management before the end of 2022, ensure consistency in records retrieval, address policy-related requirements and standardize schedules for records retention.

The new SaaS product would replace DOI’s existing eMail and Enterprise Records and Document Management System. Interested firms may submit responses through Nov 20.

Margaret Weichert, deputy director of management at the Office of Management and Budget, has announced her intent to validate gaps that hinder the government from updating technology policies, Federal Times reported Wednesday.

“While I’m here, I’m going to continue to look for those real cases where we have a use case that we need to get something done in government and there’s something structural in the way,” said Weichert.

She asked the industry to identify areas that will help the government optimize its processes. In addition, Weichert cited that information technology modernization efforts should incorporate agility, service quality and customer focus.

“If we only think about modernizing technology … we’ll fix something for a time that will then be outpaced by change in technology in the broader community.”