[Infowarrior] - SEC and Homeland Security need Web backup, GAO says

[Richard Forno]

SEC and Homeland Security need Web backup, GAO says
Mon Oct 26, 2009 6:53pm EDT
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2620750120091026

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Securities exchanges have a sound network back- 
up if a severe pandemic keeps people home and clogging the Internet,  
but the Homeland Security Department has done little planning,  
Congressional investigators said on Monday.

The department does not even have a plan to start work on the issue,  
the General Accountability Office said.

But the Homeland Security Department accused the GAO of having  
unrealistic expectations of how the Internet could be managed if  
millions began to telework from home at the same time as bored or sick  
schoolchildren were playing online, sucking up valuable bandwidth.

Experts have for years pointed to the potential problem of Internet  
access during a severe pandemic, which would be a unique kind of  
emergency. It would be global, affecting many areas at once, and would  
last for weeks or months, unlike a disaster such as a hurricane or  
earthquake.

H1N1 swine flu has been declared a pandemic but is considered a  
moderate one. Health experts say a worse one -- or a worsening of this  
one -- could result in 40 percent absentee rates at work and school at  
any given time and closed offices, transportation links and other  
gathering places.

Many companies and government offices hope to keep operations going as  
much as possible with teleworking using the Internet. Among the many  
problems posed by this idea, however, is the issue of bandwidth --  
especially the "last mile" between a user's home and central cable  
systems.

"Such network congestion could prevent staff from broker-dealers and  
other securities market participants from teleworking during a  
pandemic," reads the GAO report, available here

"The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for ensuring that  
critical telecommunications infrastructure is protected."

BLOCKING WEBSITES

Private Internet providers might need government authorization to  
block popular websites, it said, or to reduce residential transmission  
speeds to make way for commerce.

The Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council for Critical  
Infrastructure Protection and Homeland Security, a group of private- 
sector firms and financial trade associations, has been working to  
ensure that trading could continue if big exchanges had to close  
because of the risk of disease transmission.

"Because the key securities exchanges and clearing organizations  
generally use proprietary networks that bypass the public Internet,  
their ability to execute and process trades should not be affected by  
any congestion," the GAO report reads.

However, not all had good plans for critical activities if many of  
their employees were ill, the report reads.

Homeland Security had done even less, it said.

"DHS has not developed a strategy to address potential Internet  
congestion," the report said.

It had also not even checked into whether the public or even other  
federal agencies would cooperate, GAO said.

"The report gives the impression that there is potentially a single  
solution to Internet congestion that DHS could achieve if it were to  
develop an appropriate strategy," DHS's Jerald Levine retorted in a  
letter to the GAO.

"An expectation of unlimited Internet access during a pandemic is not  
realistic," he added.

(editing by Philip Barbara)