Bridging the gap between security and legacy IT

Federal Times: Last June, the Office of Personnel Management revealed a breach that would potentially impact more than 20 million individuals and was expected to have an impact on national security for years to come. The reason? The legacy systems that stored sensitive personal information weren’t capable of the necessary encryption to keep that data safe.

The challenge of legacy systems is gaining recognition with recent IT modernization bills seeking to fund upgrades and GAO testimonies noting the existence of important systems that are decades old. Yet the same types of legacy systems that left OPM vulnerable are still in use at agencies across government and in many cases play very important roles in achieving agency missions.

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