I'm not optimistic about the US Gov's ability to defend and maintain these networks. Yeah they have a lot of money to throw at the problem but eventually you have to put the best, most knowledgeable people in front of those computers and do work. They can't hire the best and brightest though, and are otherwise unwilling to make the policy changes necessary to be able to. When security professionals can make 2-3x in the private sector and smoke as much weed as they want (in this case the stereotype has some truth to it; a lot of devs/engineers use marijuana) what incentive is there to work for one of these alphabet-soup government agencies?
Even if the positions paid more and had more modern drug testing policies, I have never, NOT ONCE, met someone who works in software at a government agency or at a company doing government contract work who wasn't a massive fuddy-duddy-boomer.
These breaches will continue to happen until the Gov takes a more pragmatic approach to it's technology and brings it's culture more in line with the private sector.
Even if the positions paid more and had more modern drug testing policies, I have never, NOT ONCE, met someone who works in software at a government agency or at a company doing government contract work who wasn't a massive fuddy-duddy-boomer.
These breaches will continue to happen until the Gov takes a more pragmatic approach to it's technology and brings it's culture more in line with the private sector.