Orin Kerr writes: The Ninth Circuit has handed down United States v. Christensen, a case that touches on a bunch of computer crime issues that include the scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The court overturned CFAA convictions for employee misuse of a sensitive database. I think that result is correct, although I’m…
Category: Government Sector
Audit: California agencies vulnerable to IT security breach
Juliet Williams of AP reports: Many California state agencies are not complying with the state’s information technology standards, leaving them vulnerable to a major security breach of sensitive data such as Social Security numbers, health information or tax returns, the state auditor reported Tuesday. “Our review found that many state entities have weaknesses in their…
The OPM breach details you haven’t seen
Sean Lyngaas reports: An official timeline of the Office of Personnel Management breach obtained by FCW pinpoints the hackers’ calibrated extraction of data and the government’s step-by-step response. It illuminates a sequence of events that lawmakers have struggled to pin down in public hearings with Obama administration officials. The timeline makes clear that the heist…
JP: Pension data leak points to deeply flawed security culture
The Asahi Shimbun has an editorial about the Japan Pension Service leak reported previously on this blog. The editorial begins: Two reports have been released about the leak of personal data concerning 1.25 million or so people from the Japan Pension Service’s computer system due to a security breach caused by e-mails containing computer viruses….
How is this type of breach still happening in the Veterans Administration system?
I thought the Veterans Administration system had taken steps to ensure that people could not forward/send emails with protected health information outside the system. Yet an incident in Texas that was included in the VA’s July report to Congress shows that this still occurs. The VA’s summary of the incident for July 23rd notes: As…
Chaffetz wants answers from US-CERT, OPM on hack
Adam Mazmanian reports that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is asking some very specific questions of OPM and US-CERT: Chaffetz wants US-CERT, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, to report on when it was first contacted by OPM to report the breach, and any reporting or analysis on the nature of…