January 16, 2014
Photo courtesy sunyrockland.edu
Security expert — and once the world’s most-wanted cyber criminal — Kevin Mitnick submitted a scathing criticism to a House panel Thursday of ObamaCare’s Healthcare.gov website, calling the protections built into the site “shameful” and “minimal.”
In a letter submitted as testimony to the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, Mitnick wrote: “It’s shameful the team that built the Healthcare.gov site implemented minimal, if any, security best practices to mitigate the significant risk of a system compromise.”
Mitnick’s letter, submitted to panel Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, held comments from several leading security experts.
Mitnick concluded that, “After reading the documents provided by David Kennedy that detailed numerous security vulnerabilities associated with the Healthcare.gov Website, it’s clear that the management team did not consider security as a priority.”
His comments were backed up by testimony by Kennedy, who is CEO and founder of TrustedSec LLC and a self-described “white hat hacker,” meaning someone who hacks in order to fix security flaws and not commit cybercrime.