Federal Reports

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) initiated an investigation into a complaint that alleged improprieties concerning a recent hiring action for a vacant position within the Office of General Counsel (OGC).

The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 requires annual audits of the U.S. Postal Service’s financial statements. In addition, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 requires the Postal Service to comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This section requires the Postal Service to establish and maintain an adequate internal control structure and procedures, and assess the effectiveness.

The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (FISMA) requires all Federal agencies to conduct independent penetration tests and vulnerability assessments on a sampling of information systems annually. In conjunction with our fiscal year 2022 FISMA evaluation (2022-OE-0001), we conducted a targeted penetration test and vulnerability assessment of sample systems that resulted in a Topic Brief. The objective of this testing was to determine whether the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sample systems and their supporting infrastructure contained security weaknesses. We identified potential vulnerabilities among the tested applications that HUD should review as part of its cybersecurity program and prioritize remediation of risks deemed critical, high, or medium. No formal recommendations were documented in the report. The OIG has determined that the contents of this report would not be appropriate for public disclosure and has therefore limited its distribution to selected officials.

This semiannual report summarizes the OIG's activities and accomplishments for April 1, 2022,through September 30, 2022. The OIG issued one inspection and one information security metricsreview. The Office of Inspector General received 1,256 investigative contacts between April 1,2022, and September 30, 2022.