More than a year after egregious security failures in the government’s healthcare website were exposed in congressional hearings, data remains compromised and the ill-fated site is still subject to cyberattacks and vulnerable to massive identity theft.
In fact, just this week Judicial Watch obtained documents from the government that show a possible mass breach of the privacy of innocent Americans involving the disastrous Obamacare website (Healthcare.gov). The records, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), also reveal that top officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) knew of massive security risks with the healthcare website but chose to roll it out without resolving the problems.
When the Obamacare internet drama blew up in the administration’s face the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was called to help clean up, according to the records recently made public by JW. Electronic mail exchanges between various DHS and CMS officials indicate that White House pressure to promote a “robust” digital Obamacare ad campaign allowed private information of Healthcare.gov users to be shared with advertisers. The email chain pushing this controversial use of citizen information includes a security expert’s assessment that security was an “afterthought” on the Obamacare website, that 70,000 Healthcare.gov records were easily viewed using Google and that the official in charge was fired for not signing off on the website’s security.
