HUD OCIO should develop and implement monitoring and enforcement procedures to ensure that non-GFE devices (for example, BYOD), such as those owned by contractors or HUD employees, are either: (a) prohibited from connecting to the HUD network; or (b) properly authorized and configured before connection to the HUD network (IG FISMA metrics 2, 21, and 33).

HUD OCIO should develop and implement procedures and contract terms to enforce forfeiture of non-GFE devices (for example, BYOD), to allow for analysis when security incidents occur (IG FISMA metrics 33 and 55).

HUD OCIO should develop and implement processes to monitor and analyze qualitative and quantitative performance measures for the effectiveness of its ISCM program (IG FISMA metric 47).

HUD OCIO should define a process and assign responsibility to evaluate the effectiveness of its incident response technologies and adjust configurations and toolsets to improve the incident response program (IG FISMA metric 58).

HUD OCIO should update its enterprisewide business impact prioritization analysis procedures to include system dependencies and the characterization of system components (IG FISMA metric 61).

The OIG has determined that the contents of this recommendation would not be appropriate for public disclosure and has therefore limited its distribution to selected officials.

The OIG has determined that the contents of this recommendation would not be appropriate for public disclosure and has therefore limited its distribution to selected officials.

The OIG has determined that the contents of this recommendation would not be appropriate for public disclosure and has therefore limited its distribution to selected officials.

The OIG has determined that the contents of this recommendation would not be appropriate for public disclosure and has therefore limited its distribution to selected officials.

The OIG has determined that the contents of this recommendation would not be appropriate for public disclosure and has therefore limited its distribution to selected officials.

Define and communicate policies and procedures to ensure that its products, system components, systems, and services comply with its cybersecurity and SCRM requirements. This recommendation includes:

• Identification and prioritization of externally provided systems (new and legacy), components, and services.
• How HUD maintains awareness of its upstream suppliers.
• The integration of acquisition processes tools, and techniques to use the acquisition process to protect the supply chain.
• Contract tools or procurement methods to confirm that contractors are meeting their obligations (derived from OIG FISMA metric 14).

Status

On January 17, 2025, the Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes (OLHCHH) informed HUD OIG that the Office of the Federal Register published a notice, Modifying HUD’s Elevated Blood Lead Level Threshold for Children Under Age 6 Who Are Living in Certain HUD-Assisted Target Housing Covered by the Lead Safe Housing Rule. The notice announced that HUD is lowering its EBLL threshold from 5 to 3.5 µg/dL for a child under the age of 6, consistent with the CDC’s current blood lead reference value of 3.5 µg/dL, effective January 17, 2025. Next, OLHCHH will assist the Office of Community Planning and Development, the Office of Multifamily Housing Programs, and the Office of Public and Indian Housing to draft, circulate, and publish EBLL notices. The estimated completion date is June 30, 2025.

Analysis

To fully address this recommendation, OLHCHH must provide evidence that it has updated its regulations, policies, and procedures so that they are consistent with CDC’s lowered blood lead reference value of 3.5 ug/dL.

Implementation of this recommendation will help ensure children living in public housing with elevated blood lead levels receive effective environmental interventions.

Identify short- and long-term plans for the RPA program that align its capabilities, staffing needs, funding projections, and mission needs.

Implement procedures to capture and monitor centralized logs to maintain appropriate visibility into bot activities and provide for auditability of bot actions.

Implement procedures to periodically review RPA system access and remove access for users that are not authorized or no longer have a need to use the system.

Implement procedures to ensure that attended bots use the security rights and credentials of the attending user.

Research, evaluate, and implement technical or alternative solutions to deploy essential computer software updates using appropriate secure methods to ensure that computer security updates occur in a timely manner to minimize risk to HUD’s systems and operations

Research, evaluate, and implement technical solutions to provide additional improvements to VPN and related remote working capabilities of HUD system users.

Perform routine VPN stress tests as part of its contingency planning and testing processes to regularly identify and remediate network performance issues and ensure that network capabilities are sufficient for teleworking.

Research, evaluate, and implement technical solutions to resolve the user account management issues and the underlying issue in the technical environment.

Assess its help desk system against other technical solutions and ensure that the help desk solution used captures complete data on technical support requests. This measure includes but is not limited to ensuring that sequence gaps are properly documented or do not occur, valid transactions are accepted by the help desk system, rejected transactions are identified, and the history of each transaction is retained.