Defense Computers

The Pentagon relies on computers systems for some aspect of all of its operations, including strategic and tactical operations, sophisticated weaponry, intelligence, surveillance and security efforts, and routine business functions, such as financial management and personnel matters. Failure to deal with the Year 2000 problem in time could severely degrade or disrupt the Defense Department's (DOD) mission-critical operations. DOD has taken steps to increase awareness, promote information sharing, and encourage the military to make Year 2000 remediation efforts a high priority. Its progress in fixing systems, however, has been slow. In addition, DOD lacks key management and oversight controls to enforce good management practices, direct resources, and establish a complete picture of its progress in fixing systems. As a result, DOD lacks complete and reliable information on systems, interfaces, other equipment needing repair, and the cost of its correction efforts. It is spending limited resources fixing nonmission-critical systems even though most mission-critical systems have not been corrected. It has also increased the risk that (1) Year 2000 errors will be propagated from one organization's systems to another's, (2) all systems and interfaces will not be thoroughly and carefully tested, and (3) components will not be prepared should their systems miss the Year 2000 deadline or fail unexpectedly in operation.

GAO noted that: (1) DOD relies on computer systems for some aspect of all of its operations, including strategic and tactical operations, sophisticated weaponry, intelligence, surveillance and security efforts, and routine business functions, such as financial management, personnel, logistics, and contract management; (2) failure to successfully address the year 2000 problem in time could severely degrade or disrupt any of DOD's mission-critical operations; (3) DOD has taken many positive actions to increase awareness, promote sharing of information, and encourage components to make year 2000 remediation efforts a high priority; (4) however, its progress in fixing systems has been slow; (5) in addition, DOD lacks key management and oversight controls to enforce good management practices, direct resources, and establish a complete picture of its progress in fixing systems; (6) as a result, DOD lacks complete and reliable information on systems, interfaces, other equipment needing repair, and the cost of its correction efforts; (7) it is spending limited resources fixing nonmission-critical systems even though most mission-critical systems have not been corrected; (8) it has also increased the risk that: (a) year 2000 errors will be propagated from one organization's systems to another's; (b) all systems and interfaces will not be thoroughly and carefully tested; and (c) components will not be prepared should their systems miss the year 2000 deadline or fail unexpectedly in operation; (9) each one of these problems seriously endangers DOD chances of successfully meeting the year 2000 deadline for mission-critical systems; and (10) together, they make failure of at least some mission-critical systems and the operations they support almost certain unless corrective actions are taken.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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