Today’s reminder of the insider threat, from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia: ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A civilian electrical engineer for the Department of Defense pled guilty today to unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. According to court documents, Gokhan Gun, 51, of Falls Church, was born in Istanbul, Turkey,…
Category: Government Sector
DOGE to Fired CISA Staff: Email Us Your Personal Data
Brian Krebs reports: A message posted on Monday to the homepage of the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is the latest exhibit in the Trump administration’s continued disregard for basic cybersecurity protections. The message instructed recently-fired CISA employees to get in touch so they can be rehired and then immediately placed on leave, asking employees…
Casual White House Starlink Use Is A Cybersecurity Nightmare, A Transparency Problem, And A Weird Marketing Stunt
from the but-her-emails dept at TechDirt: Wed, Mar 19th 2025 05:26am – Karl Bode It’s best to view Elon Musk’s DOGE as an attack. While right wing propaganda (and gullible media outlets and politicians) frame DOGE as a “cost saving” effort at “improving government efficiency,” that’s just flimsy-ass cover for its real purpose: the dismantling of corporate…
DOGE Staffer Broke Treasury Rules Transmitting Personal Data
Gregory Korte and Erik Larson report: A staffer for the Department of Government Efficiency violated Treasury Department policies when he sent a spreadsheet containing personal information to two other people in the Trump administration, a federal official revealed in a court filing Friday. That DOGE staffer was Marko Elez, who left his job tracking Treasury…
Supreme Court declines to weigh in on FQHC’s patient data security liability
Dave Muoio reports: The Supreme Court has declined to hear a case on whether a Federally Qualified Health Center is immune from liability over a former patient’s stolen personally identifying information (PII). The class-action lawsuit stemmed from a patient who received care and provided that information to Sandhills Medical Foundation, an FQHC, in 2018. The…
Imprisoned IRS Contractor Leaked Information of Over 400,000 Taxpayers
James Lynch reports: Imprisoned former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn improperly leaked information of over 400,000 taxpayers, a far greater number than the agency previously disclosed. Acting IRS Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell wrote a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) earlier this month notifying him that Littlejohn’s illegal disclosures impacted 405, 427 taxpayers,…