The Federal Trade Commission has met some of its technology-related goals and struggled with others, the agency said in a report released Friday.
As part of the agency’s 2021 fiscal year annual performance report and implementation of the 2022-2023 plan, the agency reviewed technology optimization and data management processes.
Specifically, in 2021 “The FTC has begun an initiative to move the agency toward a zero-trust network architecture, which includes new managed communications services, software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN), and cloud-based secure access for remote workers.” They help increase information security and reduce IT costs and complexity, the report said.
The FTC also reduced reliance on legacy infrastructure by upgrading, replacing or eliminating “aging, supporting infrastructure components and applications” to improve operations, reduce downtime and the risk of system failures and vulnerabilities. Specifically, the FTC upgraded its enterprise management system by replacing old hardware for its wireless local area network and replacing aging laptops to help the agency “consistently meet or exceed.” [its] Cyber Security Targets.
Additionally, the FTC innovated and reengineered legacy applications and manual processes into cloud-hosted platforms and shared services. Affected applications and processes include IT service management, litigation support and onboarding.
The FTC notes that even if IT systems are modern and use cloud or shared services, its policies and procedures may not be in line with best practices. Additionally, lack of resources such as funding and manpower may slow down modernization efforts. The FTC added that traditional IT service contracting can hinder the ability to leverage agile development methods and innovative solutions.
The agency reviewed access to 11 critical information technology services, including e-mail, FTC-based applications and systems, wireless services, the Internet, telephone and voicemail, wide area networks, websites, litigation support applications, financial support systems, and remote workers. .
For FY 2021, the FTC exceeded its goal of 99.94% of the delivery of major FTC systems. These are high-end cloud-hosted systems. Meanwhile, for moving IT services to the cloud, spending on services exceeded the target of 40%, reaching 42.7%. For example, this includes deploying the ServinceNow Change Management application and streamlining the change management process, as well as automating litigation support service requests and employee security intake and tracking.
FTC Achieves Targets of Cybersecurity Goals However, the FTC had difficulty managing government-installed equipment remotely when a large percentage of FTC employees worked from home. The agency was able to achieve goals for scanning, patching, servers, network equipment and GFE workstations and multi-factor authentication.
The FTC has released a strategic plan from 2022 to 2026. A third for the agency includes a new metric that measures the percentage of FTC IT systems that are hosted outside of the FTC’s data center to increase the FTC’s efficiency and effectiveness. For 2023, the FTC has a 90% goal. Other technology-related metrics under Goal Three include: availability of information technology systems and the annual score on the FTC’s Cybersecurity Index.
The FTC’s Information Asset Management Strategic Plan will strengthen electronic information management to modernize its IT capabilities, eliminate outdated systems, and leverage cloud solutions. Additionally, the FTC said it needs to address cybersecurity challenges.
Next steps for the FTC: continue to move toward a zero-trust architecture, complete migration of legacy services and applications, implement an electronic filing system for the Hart-Scott-Rodino pre-merger filing process, optimize an identity management platform, centralize the deployment of security operations, automate onboarding and onboarding, and Increasing cloud migration and other things.
