Federal Reports

We rated the Department of Homeland Security’s information security program for FY 2023 as “effective,” according to this year’s reporting instructions. We based this rating on our evaluation of the Department’s compliance with requirements of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 for unclassified and national security systems. As recommended by this year’s reporting instructions, we used a calculated average approach when determining the effectiveness of the domain, function, and overall program. DHS received a maturity rating of “Level 4 – Managed and Measurable” in the Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover functions based on this year’s reporting guidance.

We rated the Department of Homeland Security’s information security program for FY 2023 as “effective,” according to this year’s reporting instructions. We based this rating on our evaluation of the Department’s compliance with requirements of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 for unclassified and national security systems. As recommended by this year’s reporting instructions, we used a calculated average approach when determining the effectiveness of the domain, function, and overall program. DHS received a maturity rating of “Level 4 – Managed and Measurable” in the Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover functions based on this year’s reporting guidance.

Why We Did This ReportWe are alerting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the need to ensure that mobile devices for separating employees are properly preserved and timely accessible to the Office of Inspector General to prevent the loss of evidence and other relevant records. Summary The EPA OIG is conducting an administrative investigation of a senior official for alleged ethics violations. In 2024, we notified the EPA Office of Mission Support that the senior official intended to leave, or separate from, the Agency in 2024, and we requested that the OMS preserve the information on the senior official’s electronic devices. Upon the senior official’s separation 30 days later, the OMS received five electronic devices from the official but failed to retain the three mobile devices in a way that would allow us or the Agency to access the information stored on them. As a result, we have been unable to retrieve the information and any potential federal records on these devices that may be relevant to our investigation, including text messages, telephone contact lists, and other forms of messaging. We are concerned that this is not an isolated issue.