Audit: Taxation needs to fix IT weaknesses

Auditors say the Department of Taxation needs to fix weaknesses in the security of its information technology systems.

Auditors told the legislative audit subcommittee on Monday three rooms housing servers and networking equipment weren’t secured from unauthorized access and two lacked temperature controls to prevent damage to the computers.

In addition, auditors said they identified 23 building access cards of contractors and former employees that needed to be deactivated.

They also identified 33 different networking accounts of former employees that had not been deactivated, some of them more than a year after the employee had left the department.

Taxation Director Bill Anderson said many of those issues have now been addressed.

He also told the committee there haven’t been any indications that any of Taxation’s business or other information had been accessed or compromised at this point.

He said the department has accepted all the auditors’ recommendations for improving security and record keeping in its IT security system and the department is now 97 percent in compliance with annual security awareness training requirements.