DataBreaches.Net

Menu
  • About
  • Breach Notification Laws
  • Privacy Policy
  • Transparency Report
Menu

Obamacare exchange contractors had past security lapses

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Dissent

Be forewarned: I will not allow the comments section for this post to be used as a political platform on Obamacare. Comments about whether  government should consider past breaches or problems in awarding government contracts for jobs involving personally identifiable information are welcome. 

Jaikumar Vijayan reports:

Two of the contractors involved in developing the Affordable Care Act healthcare exchanges have had fairly serious data security issues, a Computerworld review of publicly available information has found.

The incidents involving Quality Software Services (QSS) and Serco are not related to the ongoing glitches in Healthcare.gov, the ACA’s troubled website.

Even so, the information is relevant in light of the ongoing scrutiny of the companies involved with the problem-plagued exchange.

Read more on Computerworld.

Vijayan cites the Serco breach in 2011 that affected 123,000 participants in  Thrift Savings Plan. Serco was alerted to the breach in April 2012 by the FBI.  But that’s not the only breach involving Serco in recent years that Computerworld could have cited. In May 2010, Brian Krebs reported that a laptop with unencrypted information on 207,000 Army Reservists was stolen from Serco’s offices in Reston, Virginia.

For QSS, Vijayan points to a government audit by HSS that found that the firm failed to adhere to federal government security standards in delivering, what appears to be unrelated, IT testing services for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

By now, regular readers are familiar with the oft-repeated theme that no company or entity is immune to data breaches. And I wish people screaming about ACA and the risk of security breaches would also take a very hard look at – and audit – the massive database system being used for student data and sharing of student information. But did the government pick its contractors for this job wisely? Is this one of those situations where we say, okay, they had a problem, but everyone has problems sooner or later, and now they’re more aware and are unlikely to repeat the same problems? Or should the nature of past breaches be held against firms as a warning flag that a firm might have future problems?

And if critics are going to use past history of breaches to limit government contracts, then why has SAIC continued to receive lucrative government contracts despite its history of some serious or big breaches? And why, one might ask, is USIS still doing background checks for government positions?

Do we need a three-strikes policy for government contracts? Or should it be two-strikes or one-strike? Or shouldn’t we hold past  problems against a contractor seeking a government contract at all? The latter seems to be pretty foolish, but what, if any, should the limits be?

No related posts.

Category: Commentaries and Analyses

Post navigation

← UK: Government and ISPs working together to improve customers’ data security
Your prescription history is their business →

Now more than ever

"Stand with Ukraine:" above raised hands. The illustration is in blue and yellow, the colors of Ukraine's flag.

Search

Browse by Categories

Recent Posts

  • Hacker helped kill FBI sources, witnesses in El Chapo case, according to watchdog report
  • Texas Centers for Infectious Disease Associates Notifies Individuals of Data Breach in 2024
  • Battlefords Union Hospitals notifies patients of employee snooping in their records
  • Alert: Scattered Spider has added North American airline and transportation organizations to their target list
  • Northern Light Health patients affected by security incident at Compumedics; 10 healthcare entities affected
  • Privacy commissioner reviewing reported Ontario Health atHome data breach
  • CMS warns Medicare providers of fraud scheme
  • Ex-student charged with wave of cyber attacks on Sydney uni
  • Detaining Hackers Before the Crime? Tamil Nadu’s Supreme Court Approves Preventive Custody for Cyber Offenders
  • Potential Cyberattack Scrambles Columbia University Computer Systems

No, You Can’t Buy a Post or an Interview

This site does not accept sponsored posts or link-back arrangements. Inquiries about either are ignored.

And despite what some trolls may try to claim: DataBreaches has never accepted even one dime to interview or report on anyone. Nor will DataBreaches ever pay anyone for data or to interview them.

Want to Get Our RSS Feed?

Grab it here:

https://databreaches.net/feed/

RSS Recent Posts on PogoWasRight.org

  • Hacker helped kill FBI sources, witnesses in El Chapo case, according to watchdog report
  • Germany Wants Apple, Google to Remove DeepSeek From Their App Stores
  • Supreme Court upholds Texas law requiring age verification on porn sites
  • Justices nix Medicaid ‘right’ to choose doctor, defunding Planned Parenthood in South Carolina
  • European Commission publishes its plan to enable more effective law enforcement access to data
  • Sacred Secrets: The Biblical Case for Privacy and Data Protection
  • Microsoft’s Departing Privacy Chief Calls for Regulator Outreach

Have a News Tip?

Email: Tips[at]DataBreaches.net

Signal: +1 516-776-7756

Contact Me

Email: info[at]databreaches.net

Mastodon: Infosec.Exchange/@PogoWasRight

Signal: +1 516-776-7756

DMCA Concern: dmca[at]databreaches.net
© 2009 – 2025 DataBreaches.net and DataBreaches LLC. All rights reserved.