Dan Verton

The U.S. Navy confirmed late Tuesday that its multibillion-dollar Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (N/MCI) was hit by a variant of the Blaster worm, but it said that earlier statements that the network had been taken off-line were inaccurate.

A presidential commission tasked with studying ways to make the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) more efficient has recommended that it work with the Department of Homeland Security to develop sender identification technology for all U.S. mail.

A host of federal homeland security officials testified on Capitol Hill this week that the government's IT-enabled reorganization, with the Department of Homeland Security as its centerpiece, has significantly improved terrorism information sharing since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller Wednesday told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the bureau is only months away from completing work on a massive upgrade of its global IT infrastructure.

The Senate this week voted to wipe out funding for a Pentagon data mining program that the White House says is a critical weapon needed for the war on terrorism.

Improvements in IT interoperability and information-sharing at the federal level have reportedly foiled several recent terrorist plots. But policy barriers, turf wars and a growing sense of complacency in the private sector threaten to slow homeland security progress, officials said Monday.

Retired supreme allied commander Gen. Wesley K. Clark said Monday that the insurance industry and tougher government enforcement of security standards are keys to improved cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection.

Officials from the U.S. Navy and Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS), the prime contractor for the multibillion-dollar Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (N/MCI), said Tuesday that more than 80 percent of the planned number of N/MCI desktop seats will be deployed by the end of this year, allowing the service to claim an initial victory in what has been and may still be a turbulent journey.