US Government to Have Only 50 Gateways

The US government plans to decrease the approximately 4,000 active internet connections used by its civilian agencies to only 50 highly secure gateways. This move comes in part as a response to the rise in attacks on its networks.

"Most security professionals agreed that the TIC security improvements and similar measures are long overdue. 'We should have done this five years ago, but there wasn't the heart or the will then like there is now,' said Howard Schmidt, a former White House cyber security adviser. 'The timetable is aggressive,' he said, but now there is a sense of urgency behind the program. Small agencies that won't qualify for their own connections under TIC must subcontract their Internet services to larger agencies."

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