Cobol plays major role in U.S. government breaches

Computerworld:  New research is turning on its head the idea that legacy systems -- such as Cobol and Fortran -- are more secure because hackers are unfamiliar with the technology.

New research found that these outdated systems, which may not be encrypted or even documented, were more susceptible to threats.

By analyzing publicly available federal spending and security breach data, the researchers found that a 1% increase in the share of new IT development spending is associated with a 5% decrease in security breaches.

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