Government Seeks Better Information Tech but Faces High Costs and Security Risks
WASHINGTON — Information technology officials told a Senate panel Wednesday the U.S. Department of Homeland Security needs to update its computer systems even while the government struggles to pay its bills.
The alternative could be hackers using artificial intelligence to breach government computers and to devastate sensitive security systems, they said.
“We certainly have more work to do,” said Eric Hysen, the Homeland Security Department’s chief information officer. “The risk of adversarial use of AI is real.”
The Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight called the hearing as part of a government-wide information technology modernization effort.
Although their aspirations with information technology might be noble, lawmakers also are struggling with more than $31 trillion in national debt.
At least $7 billion of it is technical debt that results from vulnerabilities in data accessibility, according to government estimates.
Several pending bills seek to reduce vulnerabilities largely through greater efficiency. All of them come with the kind multi-billion dollar price tags that make some lawmakers cringe.
Federal agencies spend nearly $100 billion every year on information technology, much of it to maintain legacy systems, according to a Senate estimate. The Department of Homeland Security is spending about $10 billion a year on its computer systems.
Much of it seeks greater connectivity among linked systems along the southern border as illegal immigration continues to be a crisis. Another part of it is supposed to help catch terrorists before they strike.
The information technology experts who testified before the Senate tried to convince lawmakers they could do more with less if they modernize the systems.
“Modernization might not be a cost-saving endeavor,” said Kevin Walsh, director of Information Technology and Cybersecurity at the Government Accountability Office.
Until recently, government agencies would get new computer systems, use them for a few years until they became outdated, then replace them with new ones, the experts said.
The result was “a history of costing more than planned and taking longer than promised,” Walsh said.
He recommended a more proactive method that calls for regular cycles of assessing the systems to maximize efficiency.
Many of the recommendations were embodied in the Legacy IT Reduction Act introduced last year by Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emerging Threats. It won Senate approval but never reached a final vote in Congress.
She discussed how lapses in information technology jeopardize air travel, border security, emergency management and chances for terrorist attacks.
“The failure of any of these systems would have a significant impact on public safety and national security,” Hassan said.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, added that artificial intelligence either adds to the risks or diminishes them, depending on whether government agencies use it to plug gaps in their security. He mentioned examples of Chinese and Russian hackers.
“The vulnerability of our systems has obviously changed with the advent of AI,” Romney said.
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