The Belarusian Connection - Obamacare network vulnerable to cyber attack

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://freebeacon.com/the-belarusian-connection/

By Bill Gertz
Washington Free Beacon
February 3, 2014

U.S. intelligence agencies last week urged the Obama administration to 
check its new healthcare network for malicious software after learning 
that developers linked to the Belarus government helped produce the 
website, raising fresh concerns that private data posted by millions of 
Americans will be compromised.

The intelligence agencies notified the Department of Health and Human 
Services, the agency in charge of the Healthcare.gov network, about their 
concerns last week. Specifically, officials warned that programmers in 
Belarus, a former Soviet republic closely allied with Russia, were 
suspected of inserting malicious code that could be used for cyber 
attacks, according to U.S. officials familiar with the concerns.

The software links the millions of Americans who signed up for Obamacare 
to the federal government and more than 300 medical institutions and 
healthcare providers.

“The U.S. Affordable Care Act software was written in part in Belarus by 
software developers under state control, and that makes the software a 
potential target for cyber attacks,” one official said.

Cyber security officials said the potential threat to the U.S. healthcare 
data is compounded by what they said was an Internet data “hijacking” last 
year involving Belarusian state-controlled networks. The month-long 
diversion covertly rerouted massive amounts of U.S. Internet traffic to 
Belarus -- a repressive dictatorship located between Russia, Poland, and 
Ukraine.

[...]

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