Cybersecurity chief had qualms over health website

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

WASHINGTON (AP) - The top cybersecurity officer for the Health and Human Services Department said he was concerned about potential vulnerabilities ahead of the launch of the Obama administration's health care website.

But Kevin Charest told congressional investigators he was unable to get answers to his questions from others inside the department. He concluded that the testing of the site was substandard.

"I would say that it didn't follow best practices," Charest testified a Jan. 8 deposition. Excerpts of his testimony were provided to The Associated Press by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Charest and Teresa Fryer - another government cybersecurity professional who also had qualms - were to testify before the panel Thursday.

FULL story at link.



Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140116/DABBPFOO3.html

[OKNancy]

1. wait a minute.... he said this earlier

“The briefing revealed that there have been no successful security attacks on Healthcare.gov. According to Dr. Charest, no person or group has hacked into Healthcare.gov, and no person or group has maliciously accessed any personally identifiable information from users.”

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/no-major-security-breaches-healthcare-gov-democrats-say-2D11741989

[herding cats]

2. The Medicare site requires much more sensitive personal data.

It only goes to reason, if you're willing to let the Republicans scare you away from signing up for the ACA, the you should also stay away from signing up for Medicare, Social Security benefits and on state levels SNAP and Medicaid, to name a few. There there's your private insurance company. December of 2012 Nationwide insurance network was hacked exposing 1.1 million of its customers private data? That's just one incident I can recall off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more. And after everyone freaks out about that we'll begin going over the number of online shopping sites they use and review just they compare to the ACA website. How about that credit reporting site you signed up for without vetting first? You handed some unknown entity the keys to your kingdom and never once batted an eye. Now that's scarey!