Report to the Public AccountsCommittee on mitigation of cyber attacks
of attacks: - technical restriction of download of programmes; - limited use of local administrators; - systematic software updates. Rigsrevisionen has assessed whether the government bodies in the study ... This report concerns the action taken by Danish government bodies to prevent cyber attacks. Behaving sensibly in cyberspace to avoid attacks is important, but should be supplemented by technical ... security controls that can increase security and mitigate cyber attacks. International studies have concluded that three central security controls can prevent the majority of the currently known types ... Three basic security measures are often neglected ... . limited use of local administrators rights; 3. systematic software updates. ... Government agencies are open for cyber attacks because they often forget to respect three basic IT security measures. The three measures are: 1. technical restriction on programs downloading; 2
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Data security and positions with access to confidential information
. The 2007 Civil Service Data Information Security Decree (in Dutch: VIR 2007) is the legal foundation of the first part of this audit (data security). The Security Screening Act (in Dutch: WVO ... ) is the foundation of the second part (positions with access to confidential information). Only four of the organizations we have audited show an acceptible level of compliance with the 2007 Civil Service Data ... Information Security Decree, eight organizations show scope for improvement and nine organizations show an unsatisfactory level of compliance with the 2007 Civil Service Data Information Security Decree. When ... ... Shortcomings in information security and in positions with access to confidential information ... Surprising weaknesses were revealed by the NCA in its Government-wide operational audit performed as part of the 2011 audit into the state of central government accounts: Poor quality of data ... protection policy and poor protection of information systems. Also, non vetted positions with access to confidential information.
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Quality of public services in information society in 2010
if this is acceptable to the person in question. Even though state and local government agencies have made efforts to implement the principles of good administration, the National Audit Office cannot affirm ... The National Audit Office found that irrespective of a few positive changes, the quality of provision of public services in information society has not improved significantly in comparison to 2007 ... . Information about the services is still difficult to find on websites and people who use public services must still submit unjustified documents, proof of facts or go to administrative agencies in person ... ... The quality of public services has been improved but still isn’t good enough ... Irrespective of a few positive changes, the quality of provision of public services in information society has not improved significantly in comparison to 2007. Information about the services ... is still difficult to find on websites and people who use public services must still submit unjustified documents, proof of facts or go to administrative agencies in person.
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Management of IT security in systems outsourced to external suppliers
Security to be improved in IT processes outsourced to external suppliers When IT processes are outsourced to external suppliers, the authorities no longer have direct control of the IT security, but remain responsible for managing the security of the IT. Authorities that fail to manage IT security actively based on risk assessments, and omit to monitor the implementation of these requirements, will not be able to determine if the level of IT security in the outsourced systems safeguards their systems and data. This is how the conclusion of the Rigsrevisionen starts. The Danish auditors noticed improvement in the audited entities, but they add that tha majority of the auditees: can refine their requirements for and follow-up on access control and logging practices
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Report to on the user-friendliness and user involvement in the development of e-government services in Denmark
The e-government user-friendliness requirements are divided into five overall categories: language, design and flow, data and functionality, and accessibility. 1) The objective of the study ... is to provide an assessment of the authorities’ efforts to ensure that e-government services are user-friendly. The report answers the following questions: - Have the authorities involved the users ... in the development of the e-government services? - Have the authorities conducted post-launch assessments of the user-friendliness of the e-government services, and do the contracts with the suppliers of the solutions ... ... User-friendliness of public services should be consistenty required and tested ... The Danish Rigsrevisionen is of the opinion that the user-friendliness of the services can be improved if the authorities meet all the requirements of the Danish Agency for Digitisation concerning ... the matter. The audit covered user-friendliness related problems in case of five systems, before and after the launch. The systems take-up was also considered, as well as communicating with citizens who ... are unable to use digital services.
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Use of consultants and temporary staff
New skills needed in a longer term UK NAO: Used well, consultants and temporary staff can be an important source of specialist skills and capabilities that are uneconomic for departments to maintain in their permanent staff. Since 2009-10, the government has used spending controls to reduce its use of consultants and temporary staff, and by 2014-15 spending had fallen by £1.5 billion. However, spending has increased by between £400 million and £600 million since 2011-12, suggesting that this was more of a short-term reduction than a sustainable strategy. In the longer term, departments will need to develop workforce, skills and capacity plans to reduce their dependence on external skills. They will need to improve their strategic workforce planning to determine where they can deploy existing staff, where they need to recruit, and where they need to engage temporary resources. Without this, departments cannot demonstrate that they are achieving value for money from the use of consultants and temporary staff.
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Digital transformation in government
Support exemplars, provide consistent guidance... and do not lose focus As the NAO states: Government faces significant challenges in providing public services. While many government services are now available online, public administration is struggling to manage more complicated programmes and to improve the complex systems and processes that support public services.
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Usability of public digital services directed at businesses
G2B - in search of user friendliness Danish Rigsrevisionen finds that the digital services directed at businesses, examined during this audit, are not sufficiently user-friendly from start to finish, and the authorities need to focus more on ensuring that relevant solutions are interlinked in a userfriendly manner.
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