An Analysis of the DoD Certification and Accreditation Process

The Department of Defense (DoD) current strategic vision is to ensure that information superiority is maintained across the full spectrum of operations. Hence, one of the greatest challenges facing this vision is to secure the information infrastructure. Protection of the infrastructure entails the standoff of a myriad of attacks and malicious activity such as denial-of-service, viruses and Trojan horses. A daunting challenge in itself, protection of the infrastructure succeeds only with a strong policy, process, and standard. The current process used to ensure protection is the DoD Information Technology Security Certification and Accreditation Process (DITSCAP). It is currently being revised to the DoD Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Process (DIACAP). This thesis analyzes current and past applications of the DITSCAP to evaluate successes and failures. Due to the large number of personnel who use the process and the astronomical cost associated with traveling to each of their commands, the method selected to obtain data for analysis was a survey and phone interviews. The survey was web-based and the link was emailed to personnel who use the process. The objective of this thesis is to provide recommendations for improving the process that should be considered in developing the DIACAP.

Department dc:contributor.department

Information Technology Management

Grantor dc:publisher

Monterey, California: Naval Postgraduate School.

Year dc:date.issued

1994

Author dc:creator

• LeCounte, James A.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Burke, Karen

Statement dc:rights

• This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10945/45357

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:calhoun.nps.edu:10945/45357