US Government Sites First, Healthcase Last in Security, Privacy Audit

The Internet Society’s Online Trust Alliance (OTA) gave its highest overall audit security and privacy scores to consumer-facing U.S. government websites and its lowest to healthcare sites, it said Tuesday in its ranking of seven industries. OTA said the healthcare industry ranked second in terms of privacy, but its last-place ranking was “largely due to sparse adoption of email authentication and always-encrypted sessions.” Overall, the audit found increased encryption, with 93 percent of sites encrypting all web sessions, compared with 52 percent in 2017, and more email authentication. “Almost every sector improved its security and privacy practices, and the record scores reflect that,” said Jeff Wilbur, OTA technical director. “The U.S. Government in particular made stunning improvements, from near last in 2017 to top of the class in 2018. Unfortunately, some sectors still have a long way to go to demonstrate acceptable security and privacy practices.”