Interior asked to disconnect office

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0701/web-int-07-01-02.asp

By Megan Lisagor 
July 1, 2002

Here they go again.

Plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit have asked a federal judge to
disconnect the Office of Surface Mining from the Internet - for the
second time.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth pulled the plug on the Interior
Department's Web sites in December to protect data maintained under
its Trust Asset and Accounting Management System, citing a report that
showed hackers could easily breach the system.

The OSM Web site went back online nearly two months later with many
more Interior agencies, including the National Park Service, following
suit.

But that was then.

"Contemnors again have placed individual Indian trust data at imminent
risk of loss, corruption, deletion or unlawful manipulation because
OSM systems are connected to the Internet and security is inadequate,"  
attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote in an introduction to an emergency
motion filed June 27.

OSM officials declined to comment.

Interior has held American Indian-owned lands in trust for more than
100 years, leasing the properties and processing revenue earned from
farming and drilling. A group of beneficiaries filed a class action
lawsuit in 1996, claiming that poor bookkeeping has prevented
landowners and their descendants from determining their account
balances. They estimate as much as $10 billion in lost or missing
funds.

Their motion comes only one day after a joint Interior/tribal leader
task force briefed the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on the
progress it has made toward reaching consensus on a solution to trust
reform.

Despite the positive tone of the hearing, lead plaintiff Eloise Cobell
said problems remain. Cobell has asked the court to place individual
trust accounts in receivership out of Interior's control. A decision
is pending.

"We need the experts that a receiver would bring in" to fix the
computer systems, she said. "I think that the entire firewall and
access [issue] has not been refined [to] where we feel we can trust
the inability of hackers to get in."



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