A cybersecurity perfect storm has been brewing for years in Missouri’s state government computer systems under the supervision of a governor who clearly is clueless regarding computers and data. State computer systems and online data networks are antiquated, using programming languages that became obsolete decades ago. Recent comments by Gov. Mike Parson suggest he thinks that people in white coats with floppy discs and boxes of punch cards are what make those dang computers work.
The Office of Administration under Parson’s direction is not to be trusted with cybersecurity as long as the governor insists that he’s right and the rest of the world is wrong when it comes to identifying hackers. The Legislature and State Auditor’s Office should team up to devise an independent auditing system to ensure the sensitive personal data of state employees, contractors and students can’t be inadvertently exposed because of the governor’s willful incompetence.
The stakes are too high to trust that the executive branch won’t again blunder its way into another mishap like the one Post-Dispatch reporter Josh Renaud exposed in October. While reviewing online teacher-certification data, he discovered that teachers’ Social Security numbers were embedded in source code on a state website. He alerted state authorities and withheld publication of a story until the sensitive data could be secured.
