Shame, Irony, and the Littoral Combat Ship.

A Navy team of computer hacking experts found some deficiencies when assigned to try to penetrate the network of the USS Freedom, the lead vessel in the $37 billion Littoral Combat Ship program, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

– Reuters

I have no particular love for the LCS program, but this piece is just lazy. The LCS has all kinds of problems, all of which are very well-documented, and this one isn’t even in the top ten. The author ignores this, electing instead to play on the irony of a warship being insecure.

Journalism like this makes government programs defensive, secretive, and reluctant to conduct honest self-assessments. Imagine if you had a Reuters article written about you every time you had a finding during an IA audit. It would be demoralizing, and would do nothing to improve your security posture. Identifying vulnerabilities should be something we encourage and celebrate, not something we pillory people for.