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Office of Personnel Management Says Hackers Got Data of Millions of Individuals

nytimes.com

1–10 of 86 posts

Re: Office of Personnel Management Says Hackers Got Data of Millions of Individuals

#2
No surprises there.

I get deeply frustrated (though I understand where they are coming from) when governments make the argument that they can't take advantage of this or that cloud service because the service's security isn't vetted. Clearly, the security in the backing systems owned by the government isn't sufficiently vetted either, so they're sacrificing velocity for non-security.

I know, it's a flippant attitude. Blame a lousy day. ;)

Re: Office of Personnel Management Says Hackers Got Data of Millions of Individuals

#3

No surprises there. I get deeply frustrated (though I understand where they are coming from) when governments make the argument that they can't take advantage of this or that cloud service because the service's security isn't vetted. Clearly, the security in the backing systems owned by the government isn't sufficiently vetted either, so they're sacrificing velocity for non-security. I know, it's a flippant attitude.…

There's quite a bit of u.s. government on amazon cloud. Using a cloud service doesn't magically give you better security.

This is more an indication of the NSA focusing too strongly on offensive/monitoring operations and not on information security, which is their job as well.

Re: Office of Personnel Management Says Hackers Got Data of Millions of Individuals

#4
The worst of this is that I had just taken a government job when the 4.2 million person breach was claimed to have happened. I had very serious concerns about giving out so much (and it was an absolute ton, more than any other employer I've ever worked for) information. I had thought about not taking the job but like many Americans I really didn't have much of a choice. The choice was homelessness and perhaps even going to court for failing to pay my obligations, or a nice comfy job and pay.

Why does the government need so much data on its employees; that's what should be asked!

Re: Office of Personnel Management Says Hackers Got Data of Millions of Individuals

#5
This hack occurred well over a year ago. The DoD knows exactly how many people this affected as it was informing its employees to be wary of the implications of this (telling their kids to watch out for Chinese blackmail, potential social engineering attempts with more informed information from the data dump). I am honestly surprised this story took this long to be discovered.

Re: Office of Personnel Management Says Hackers Got Data of Millions of Individuals

#6

The worst of this is that I had just taken a government job when the 4.2 million person breach was claimed to have happened. I had very serious concerns about giving out so much (and it was an absolute ton, more than any other employer I've ever worked for) information. I had thought about not taking the job but like many Americans I really didn't have much of a choice. The choice was homelessness and perhaps even go…

[deleted]

Re: Office of Personnel Management Says Hackers Got Data of Millions of Individuals

#7
post #3

No surprises there. I get deeply frustrated (though I understand where they are coming from) when governments make the argument that they can't take advantage of this or that cloud service because the service's security isn't vetted. Clearly, the security in the backing systems owned by the government isn't sufficiently vetted either, so they're sacrificing velocity for non-security. I know, it's a flippant attitude.…

There's quite a bit of u.s. government on amazon cloud. Using a cloud service doesn't magically give you better security. This is more an indication of the NSA focusing too strongly on offensive/monitoring operations and not on information security, which is their job as well.

Yes, there's a whole portion of the Amazon Cloud that's run entirely for government (a family member is a higher-up at AWS Gov), and I have to assume they're also running private clouds with physical security, but I have no idea.

Re: Office of Personnel Management Says Hackers Got Data of Millions of Individuals

#8

No surprises there. I get deeply frustrated (though I understand where they are coming from) when governments make the argument that they can't take advantage of this or that cloud service because the service's security isn't vetted. Clearly, the security in the backing systems owned by the government isn't sufficiently vetted either, so they're sacrificing velocity for non-security. I know, it's a flippant attitude.…

Government is full of cargo-cult policymaking. I assume it's a combination of no real qualifications to get a job making policy combined with that seductive feeling of giving orders.

Re: Office of Personnel Management Says Hackers Got Data of Millions of Individuals

#9
post #7
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a bit of u.s. government on amazon cloud. Using a cloud service doesn't magically give you better security. This is more an indication of the NSA focusing too strongly on offensive/monitoring operations and not on information security, which is their job as well.

Yes, there's a whole portion of the Amazon Cloud that's run entirely for government (a family member is a higher-up at AWS Gov), and I have to assume they're also running private clouds with physical security, but I have no idea.

It's the GovCloud AWS region.

http://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/

Re: Office of Personnel Management Says Hackers Got Data of Millions of Individuals

#10
post #3

No surprises there. I get deeply frustrated (though I understand where they are coming from) when governments make the argument that they can't take advantage of this or that cloud service because the service's security isn't vetted. Clearly, the security in the backing systems owned by the government isn't sufficiently vetted either, so they're sacrificing velocity for non-security. I know, it's a flippant attitude.…

There's quite a bit of u.s. government on amazon cloud. Using a cloud service doesn't magically give you better security. This is more an indication of the NSA focusing too strongly on offensive/monitoring operations and not on information security, which is their job as well.

fixermark was not claiming that cloud services would give better security, but that it's probably no worse.
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