According to an 11/26 email that came down from On High, December 1-5 is
DHS’ “Computer Security Awareness Week”. (mark your calendar!)

Computerized information is increasingly the target of
computer hackers or cyber-terrorists that seek access to or destruction of
our systems. Stopping such intruders is vital to the mission of DHS. The
stakes have never been higher, and your role as a knowledgeable computer
user has never been more critical.

The goal of Computer Security Awareness Week is to remind us to protect
the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our information.
Understanding appropriate computer use will help you to recognize the
threats we face and to avoid mistakes that can lead to more serious
consequences.

DHS Online’s 11/25 daily news digest included an article from
Government Computer News titled “Microsoft Homeland Security Head
Stresses Partnership With DHS” (11/24, Sinha).

Before DHS
was formed, one of the things the White House transition team did was
inventory the 22 component agencies to see how to build a common
enterprise from their disparate IT. … So it made sense to migrate
the other four agencies to Microsoft Exchange for unified messaging.’
In response to widespread Microsoft security breaches, Richey says “we
recognize we have a challenge around security. We’re not alone in that
challenge. “

I don’t use MS Exchange at work. I use
proprietary a engineer-for-job-security messaging solution so weird most
employees don’t even know you can use it to send email… but it doesn’t
suffer from Macro worms, so that’s good.

On 11/26 The Hill
reported that Senator Orrin Hatch had suspended an aide found to have
hacked into minority (read: Democratic) senators’ computer systems an
stolen sensitive documents which were later leaked to the press. See How long have
GOoPers been stealing Dem info? a DailyKos for more.

I know, I know: I’m late on the 1-2-3, it being December and all. But at
least you know that the National
Cyber Security Division is up to the job of “protecting the nation’s
cyber assets so that we may best protect the nations critical
infrastructure assets.” That’s DHS speak for “making sure interns can’t
read top secret senate committee reports.”

[UPDATE:Agencies get
failing grades on cybersecurity according to GovExec.com on 09DEC2003.
When the 2003 Federal Computer Security Scorecard was released the Feds
got a “D”, overall. Homeland Security got an F.]