Contractor Faulted in DHS Data Breach

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Washington Post

The FBI is investigating a major information technology firm with a $1.7 billion Department of Homeland Security contract after it allegedly failed to detect cyber break-ins traced to a Chinese-language Web site and then tried to cover up its deficiencies, according to congressional investigators.

At the center of the probe is Unisys Corp., a company that in 2002 won a $1 billion deal to build, secure and manage the information technology networks for the Transportation Security Administration and DHS headquarters. In 2005, the company was awarded a $750 million follow-on contract.

On Friday, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) called on DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner to launch his own investigation.

As part of the contract, Unisys, based in Blue Bell, Pa., was to install network-intrusion detection devices on the unclassified computer systems for the TSA and DHS headquarters and monitor the networks. But according to evidence gathered by the House Homeland Security Committee, Unisys's failure to properly install and monitor the devices meant that DHS was not aware for at least three months cyber-intrusions that began in June 2006. Through October of that year, Thompson said, 150 DHS computers -- including one in the Office of Procurement Operations, which handles contract data -- were compromised by hackers, who sent an unknown quantity of information to a Chinese-language Web site that appeared to host hacking tools.

The contractor also allegedly falsely certified that the network had been protected to cover up its lax oversight, according to the committee.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/23/AR2007092301471.html?hpid=topnews

[tech3149]

1. Color me shocked! n/t

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. I am not surprised.

I had a friend over yesterday. He is a high-priced sysadmin for a division of a very big entertainment and telecom company. His stories of the laziness and incompetance of some of the people he works with and for are pretty entertaining. In a dismaying sort of way.

Add attitudes like the above to the usual toxic behavior of defense contractors and its almost surprising that people aren't dying from exploding computers.

[tanyev]

3. Gosh, I feel so secure.

[Javaman]

4. I think DHS should be renamed CHI...

clearing house for idiots.

[htuttle]

5. I had to work with Unisys on medicaid/medicare billing several years ago...

They are absolutely crooked from top to bottom. The question of whether they were 'competent' wasn't even an issue. They weren't even trying to conduct business in order to accomplish what they'd been paid to do -- it was simply all about increasing their own take for as long as possible.

False certifications, lies and incompetence-at-best are all par for the course when dealing with Unisys. The fact that they still get hired for government contracts tells you all you need to know about why nothing at the Federal level works right anymore.