Federal CIO Vivek Kundra, Thursday told a Senate subcommittee that the U.S. Office of Management and Budget had launched CyberScope, a more efficient and secure method for digitally reporting Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) compliance.

Rather than submitting spreadsheets via e-mail and paper copies of inspector general reports, in mid-October agencies began using a secure interactive data collection tool to report FISMA compliance.

Currently the focus is on reporting compliance, Kundra testified. In the spring, the OMB plans to release a cyber-security dashboard that will give its 600 agency users a performance-based look at their cyber-security policies.

The State Department is already using a similar dashboard to secure its 5,000 routers and 40,000 hosts across 285 posts. Information on systems’ security is gathered through automated processes and posts are graded on a set of criteria, including security settings and the vulnerability of hosts. “Because scores are visible to other system managers across the agency, the system fosters an atmosphere of peer-based competition,” Kundra said in written testimony.