SAnas January, the Ministry of Governmental Efficiency in Elon Musk (DOGE) filmed federal programs, which resulted in the removal of positions related to related situations Dangerous waste removalVeteran support and control of diseases, among other things. While many have already been affected, Cyber Security experts are concerned about the effects that have not yet been achieved in the form of breakthroughs, fraud and privacy violations.
Dogs launched senior cyber security officers from various agencies, I devoured CISA security and infrastructure agency (CISA), and was canceled at least 32 decades related to cybersecurity With the Consumer Financial Protection Office (CFPB). Cyber security experts, including those who opened fire by Dog, argue that the agency has shown doubtful practices to protect the amount of personal data kept by the government, including in agencies such as Social Security Administration and the Ministry of Old Warriors Affairs (VA). Last week, the court submitted open The Doge employee has violated the Treasury Management policy by sending an email containing non -encrypted personal information.
Jonathan Kamens, who supervised cybersecurity, told VA.com until February. “This makes it easy for bad actors to reach.”
Dog’s arrival to some of the agencies was limited in response to dozens of lawsuits filed. But while these battles play in court, Dog Continuing To access huge amounts of sensitive data. Here is what Cyber security experts warn.
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Personal information
With Dog Steam picking up after the opening, cybersecurity experts began to express concern about the new privacy practices of the organization and digital hygiene. Reports Duji members were attached to government networks Unauthorized servers And joint information on unsafe channels. Last month, Doge.gov was changed by external programmers who found it to publish Updates to the website without permission. In the same month, Treasury officials He said A 25 -year -old Dog employee was “accidentally” granted temporarily to make changes to the federal payment system.
Cyber security experts find these disturbing lapses because the government stores huge amounts of data to serve Americans. For example, the Ministry of Old Warriors Affairs stores banking accounts and credit card numbers of millions of old warriors who receive advantages and services. Camens, who says he was the only federal employee in the agency with an engineering technical background that supervises cybersecurity for VA.Gov.
Read more: Dog’s moves via the federal government
Kamins says that he was partially appointed to improve the site “many specific security problems” of the site, which rejected the name for secret reasons. Now, he says, infiltrators can take advantage of those issues that have not been resolved to learn information that may have been subjected to information about old warriors, and then target them in hunting campaigns.
Peter Kasperovich, the VA press secretary, wrote to a time in an email that “VA employs hundreds of cyberspace security personnel to maintain the ministry’s web sites and the beneficiaries’ data is safe around the clock.”
Erie Mayer, the former chief technician at the Consumer Financial Protection Office (CFPB), resigned in February after the DOGE members appeared in the agency’s offices that request data privileges. Its role focused on protecting the sensitive data of CFPB, including transactions records from credit reporting agencies, complaints submitted by citizens, and information from major technology companies under investigation. “There is a set of fine protection in place for each other to make sure that no one can take advantage of this information,” Mayer says.
But Dog has cut many of these efforts, including regular maintenance of audit records and events recordings that showed how and when the employees reached this information. “The program that we had in the place of tracking what was done has been turned off,” she says. This means that DOGE staff can now access the financial statements without any supervision of how or the reason they reach this, Mayer says.
Mayer is also concerned about the abolition of dozens of cybersecurity contracts, which included deals with companies that have disposed of security equipment, the provision of VPNS to government employees, and encrypted email servers. “People need us when the worst financial disasters of their families occur,” she says. “It is dirty to open them to fraud like this.”
CFPB actor did not immediately respond to the comment. In an e -mail statement to time, White House press secretary Caroline Levit wrote: “President Trump promised the American people that he would establish a portion of government competence, supervised by Elon Musk, to make the federal government more efficient and accountable to taxpayers. People and their family efforts will fail.”
Bad fraud and actors
In addition to concern about what Dog is doing with citizens ’data, cyber security experts are concerned that their aggressive tactics can make it easy for fraudsters to infiltrate systems, which can have severe consequences. For example, Doge is currently accessing social security management data, which includes personal information about the elderly Americans. Kamens notes that fraudsters often use personal information, such as the bank or hospital per person, in order to persuade them that they are a trusted person. And this It seems that the tactics work well in particular On the elderly, who are less clear to technology: $ 3.4 billion of fraud losses by people between the ages of 60 and over in 2023, i3C, I3C, has been reported. Find.
These security gaps also extend to national security issues. Camez says that Duji members themselves will immediately become targets for the actors in the foreign country. Earlier this month, Rob Joyce, the former leader of the National Security Agency unit, focuses on foreign computer systems, to caution Doug’s mass shooting for federal employees under observation will have a “devastating effect on cybersecurity and our national security.”
About 130 of these officers were under divorced monitoring part of the CISA and the infrastructure (CISA) cost With the discovery of energy network violations, pipelines and water system. “CISA has already begun,” said Michael Daniel, President and CEO of Cyber threats and cybersecurity coordinator during President Obama. “It is possible that the crucial infrastructure owner and operator are not able to get help from CISA as a result of discounts.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren formulated letter On the pretext that Dog is a threat to national security by exposing secrets about US defense and intelligence agencies. “We don’t know what guarantees have been withdrawn. Are the gates open now for infiltrators from China, from North Korea, from Iran, from Russia?” She said in a statement. “Heck, who knows what infiltrators around the world discover all over the world about each of us and copy that information for their own criminal uses?”
Regular risk
Caperanian security experts also feel anxious about the dangers of DOGE engineers unintentionally from parts of the government’s digital systems, which can be very old and complex, or inadvertently introducing harmful programs to basic code.
particularly, Malian experts They said that the mistakes made within the regulations of the sensitive treasury may harm the American economy. Kamens warns that if Doge interferes with the social security system, medical care compensation or deficit payments may fail on time, which endangers life. “They shot the people who know where there are points of danger,” he says.
Last week, a federal judge interrogation Government lawyers about why Dog need to obtain social security management systems, and are still considering closing access. Another lawsuit, which was filed by 19 state lawyers in an attempt to prevent Doug from reaching the Treasury in February continuous.
Kamens adds that the security risks can increase over time, especially if the roles are still not full. He says that every person was working with them in USDs (the digital service of the United States), and Doug’s Silence, came to the government from the private sector, and worries that the most important cyber security professionals will not want to join federal employees due to instability and the risks of launching or undermining them.
He says that this employment deficiency can prevent the government from alleviating new and advanced attacks. “The truth is that there are new security holes that are constantly discovered,” he says. “If you are not actively developing from your electronic defenses to match the offensive things that occur in this scene, you will end up to the loss of the Earth.”
Daniel says that just because he has not broken, but it does not mean that Dog is doing an appropriate job to stop cybersecurity threats. He says, “It is not an immediate note episode.” “This is part of the challenge here: We are talking about increasing risks that may play during a long period of time.”
Correction, March 19
The original version of this story has offended the role of Jonathan Kamez in Va.gov. He was the only federal employee in the agency with an engineering technical background overseeing the cybersecurity of VA.Gov, and not the only federal employee in the agency with this background that works on this issue. The original version of this story also misused the use of former Kamens colleagues in USDs. They came to the government from the private sector, not the privacy sector.