United States Postal Service (USPS) Faces Modernization, Cybersecurity Challenges

guest · Nov 29, 2019

USPS Faces Modernization, Cybersecurity Challenges
November 29, 2019
https://www.meritalk.com/articles/usps-faces-modernization-cybersecurity-challenges/

The United States Post Office’s (USPS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) Semiannual Report to Congress lists infrastructure modernization, IT, and cybersecurity as some of the agency’s most critical management challenges.

The report, released on Nov. 25, reviews USPS audits, investigations, and challenges between April 2019 and September 2019. The OIG made 227 recommendations in the report that ultimately resulted in more than $175 million of funding put to better use, but modernization challenges persist at the agency.
As consumer demand for letter mail declines, USPS must modernize to compete with commercial services such as digital advertising, electronic bill pay, and email, the OIG said.

OIG also reported challenges with USPS’s digital presence. Customers are demanding a timely, relevant, and accurate digital experience that USPS is not providing. Falling behind in IT modernization also leaves the agency vulnerable to cyber threats, the inspector general said.

“As information technology and the cyber threat landscape evolves, security continues to be an ongoing challenge.”
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guest · Sep 11, 2020

Postal Service left vulnerable IT applications unaddressed for years, inspector general finds
September 11, 2020
https://www.cyberscoop.com/postal-service-inspector-general-cyber-vulnerabilities/

Officials at the U.S. Postal Service let multiple vulnerable applications languish on the agency’s IT network for years — flaws that could have been exploited by hackers to steal sensitive data, an inspector general audit has found.

The inspector general investigation, distributed to Postal Service leadership in July, faults IT officials at the agency for not keeping a slew of applications up to date. Six of the IT applications were left on the Postal Service network for up to seven years with things like incomplete certification and accreditation from technology executives, according to the IG memo.
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A dozen vulnerabilities were deemed “catastrophic” by the USPS’s Corporate Information Security Office, the watchdog said, meaning they could have exposed the agency to big financial damages.

“These are common, well-known vulnerabilities that have been present for three years that could be exploited by an attacker utilizing publicly available methods,” the memo reads.
“The vulnerabilities identified in this report were found, scoped and addressed by the Postal Service,” an agency spokesperson told CyberScoop.

Vice News was first to report on the audit.
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This is not the first time the Postal Service has struggled with IT security. It took the agency more than a year to fix a vulnerability in its website that allowed anyone with a USPS account to view the personal details of 60 million other users, journalist Brian Krebs reported in November 2018.
Perhaps the biggest confirmed breach suffered by the Postal Service took place in September 2014, when hackers infiltrated the agency’s computer systems and compromised personal data on some 800,000 employees.
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