Lawmakers are concerned that the Social Security Administration (SSA) could be vulnerable to the same kind of devastating cyberattack as the one that hit the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
The SSA networks “bear the hallmarks of poor information security similar to those seen at OPM’s networks back in 2014,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ChairmanJason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said during a Thursday hearing.The OPM hacks, revealed last summer, exposed the personal information of over 20 million current and former federal employees, contractors and others.
In one recent testing incident at the SSA, an external auditor was able to exfiltrate large amount of information from the agency's networks without its knowledge. The SSA did not inform the Inspector General’s office of the audit report.
Chaffetz called the agency’s failure to disclose the incident “suspicious.”
The SSA networks “bear the hallmarks of poor information security similar to those seen at OPM’s networks back in 2014,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ChairmanJason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said during a Thursday hearing.The OPM hacks, revealed last summer, exposed the personal information of over 20 million current and former federal employees, contractors and others.
In one recent testing incident at the SSA, an external auditor was able to exfiltrate large amount of information from the agency's networks without its knowledge. The SSA did not inform the Inspector General’s office of the audit report.
Chaffetz called the agency’s failure to disclose the incident “suspicious.”
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