The CDO should coordinate with HUD’s Records Office, Privacy Office, and program offices to develop data policies and procedures for data inventory, categorization, and labeling in support of zero trust architecture.

Status

HUD is working on a plan to address the recommendation. HUD OIG anticipates receiving a corrective action plan no later than April 11, 2025, with a plan for resolving this recommendation.

Analysis

By addressing the recommendation, HUD will be positioned better to protect and prioritize protection for data in its IT systems. This will allow HUD to have a better understanding of the specifics of the most sensitive data as well as allow recommendation 2024-OE-0002a-003 to be addressed by HUD.

HUD maintains billions of records of PII and sensitive data within IT systems and the IT environment. Knowing more specifics about the data is essential in the ability to protect and recover from attempted exfiltration attempts.

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.

We recommend that the General Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Policy Development and Research, and the Deputy Chief Information Officer, Office of the Chief Information Officer develop the project management documents, as required by HUD’s Project Planning and Management Life Cycle V2.0 policy, including obtaining required approvals and ensuring that an adequate project risk management process is established for identifying, analyzing, and responding to project risks.

We recommend that the General Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Policy Development and Research; the Deputy Chief Information Officer; and the Director, Office of Disaster Recovery, identify and incorporate at least one additional data source into the Disaster Recovery Data Portal to further assist grantees with duplication of benefits assessments.

Ensure there are resources available for further development of geocoding services that fulfill HUD’s responsibilities stated in 43 U.S.C. § 2808(a)(5) and 43 U.S.C. § 2808(a)(12) through the reactivation of the lapsed Geocode Service Center contract.

Take appropriate actions to prioritize the need for resources necessary to ensure that HUD fully implements the remaining four responsibilities as required by sections 759(a)(1), 759(a)(2), 759(a)(4), and 759(a)(5) of the Geospatial Data Act of 2018.

Deobligate all obligations marked for deobligation during the departmentwide OOR, including as much as $54,909 in 13 administrative obligations marked for deobligation as of September 30, 2018

Deobligate all obligations marked for deobligation during the departmentwide OOR, including as much as $279,282 in 11 administrative obligations marked for deobligation as of September 30, 2017.

Develop improved procedures and provide training to appropriate staff regarding the departmental clearance process requirements, including • Determining which guidance is considered to be a directive, including public communications, and • Ensuring that HUD program participants have clear, instructive, and helpful information to comply with the applicable requirements and procedures for HUD programs.

Review the Clearance Calendar and ensure that appropriate form HUD-22 concurrence forms were obtained and documented for directives issued by other HUD offices.

Implement controls to ensure that future directives are reviewed and documented in the Clearance Calendar tracking system as required.

Update policies and procedures for the directives process, including responsibilities for process oversight and clear guidance defining when clearance is required.

Develop and provide training to appropriate staff and required reviewing offices regarding the departmental clearance process requirements.