What federal agencies don’t know about protecting their data and computer systems could really hurt them, senior federal information security professionals said on Thursday.

Comment on this article in The Forum.“It’s like the days prior to Pearl Harbor and 9/11,” said Daniel Galik, chief information security officer at the Health and Human Services Department, at a breakfast seminar sponsored by Government Executive. “We have some very serious challenges. The attacker is several steps ahead of us across the board.”

Bruce McConnell, former chief of information and technology policy at the Office of Management and Budget who currently runs a consulting firm (and contributes to the Tech Insider blog at Nextgov), called the situation an “invisible crisis.” Agencies, he said, have long been operating in an “inherently insecure environment,” and “the sheriff has not shown up yet.” ...