Open Recommendations

FHFA's DBR should conduct outreach to federal financial regulators to reinforce the need for compliance with 12 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1), which requires their production of reports, records, and information relating to the condition of any member of any FHLBank upon request by an FHLBank. As part of this outreach, make clear that such materials extend beyond ROEs, and that materials produced in response to an FHLBank requests should be provided without substantive redactions.

FHFA's DBR should assess the extent to which restrictions on access to state-issued ROEs may hinder the FHLBanks in making fully informed decisions when evaluating applications for membership and when making determinations to limit or deny member requests for advances in accordance with applicable FHFA regulations.

FHFA's DBR should, if applicable, continue to pursue outreach with the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and state regulators to assist FHLBanks in accessing state-issued ROEs.

FHFA's DBR should complete its assessment of the extent of weaknesses in the FHLBanks’ enforcement of members’ material adverse change notification requirements, and provide guidance to FHLBanks on best practices, such as issuing periodic reminders of notification requirements, to help ensure members’ compliance with the FHLBanks’ contractual requirements.

Establish a process to periodically update training with the correct information and links to reports, systems, and tools.

Create a plan to provide recurring refresher training regarding managing workloads for all management staff, including field and regional offices.

Update written training materials with standardized steps and/or checklists for management to follow to ensure they are properly managing workloads and using the correct reports, systems, and tools.

Create one consolidated resource, which includes reports, trainings, systems, and tools, for information used to manage workloads.

Update systems and tools to reflect workload and software/application version changes and improve their compatibility with other systems and tools.

We recommend that the Office of the Chief Information Officer require DOI bureaus and offices to prioritize vulnerability remediation according to risk as defined by the system owner and ensure that all overdue known exploited vulnerabilities are validated and remediated.

We recommend that the Office of the Chief Information Officer review and analyze DOI bureau and office vulnerability scan results against their internal procedures to identify and implement overall improvements across DOI.

We recommend that the Office of the Chief Information Officer query bureaus and offices for all current systems with publicly available interfaces and develop a DOI?wide inventory that maintains IP addressing and service ports, system ownership, and point of contact information.

We recommend that the Office of the Chief Information Officer develop a process whereby all changes to publicly available systems and newly deployed systems are updated in a DOI-wide inventory and included in any security assessments and monitoring.

We recommend that the Office of the Chief Information Officer conduct regular reviews of all open vulnerabilities that are older than the required completion timeframes and ensure that any vulnerabilities that have not been closed are tracked in accordance with Federal requirements.

We recommend that the Office of the Chief Information Officer establish a vulnerability management process that includes using historical data to identify and report vulnerabilities that have persisted beyond required remediation timeframes and sharing the data with bureaus and offices.

We recommend that the Office of the Chief Information Officer require bureaus and offices use available tools to periodically evaluate for vulnerabilities persisting beyond approved timelines and prioritize their remediation.

We recommend that the Office of the Chief Information Officer require bureaus and offices remediate any vulnerabilities persisting beyond the timeframes required by Federal guidelines and Department policies.

We recommend that the Office of the Chief Information Officer require bureaus and offices use updated guidance and resources provided by the Office of the Chief Information Officer, in response to Recommendation 4 of this report, to evaluate and prioritize remediation of vulnerabilities persisting beyond approved timelines.

The Director, Field Collection, SB/SE Division, should issue a memorandum to revenue officers emphasizing the importance of preseizure actions, such as those identified during our review.

The Director, Collection Policy, SB/SE Division, should establish seizure log reconciliation procedures and a uniform set of defined seized property classifications for Form 13719 and the seizure log.

Develop a mechanism to identify all applicable charges when calculating postage due to incorporate into its automated calculations.

Incorporate large and oversized package charges into postage due calculations for return-to-sender packages.

Retroactively invoice return addressees for large package charges that should have been paid.

Electronically link the payment of postage due to the specific packages for which the payments are based.

Further automate the postage due calculation and collection process for undeliverable packages, using weights and dimensions captured by mail processing equipment.