This latest Special Report spotlights a surprising lack of government record-keeping oversight, along with critical cyber-security gaps, both revealed in last week’s Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit of the National Archives and Records Administration and four key government agencies: Homeland Security, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Trade Commission, and HUD.

The GAO audit was provided to the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Unfortunately, while the GAO described certain record-keeping and computer management practices at these various agencies, they may not have fully understood how the practices they documented would lead to troubling security flaws at the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Trade Commission, and they certainly didn’t point them out explicitly for the Committee to investigate. This report provides those details.