on Thu, Dec 06, 2001 at 10:19:47PM -0600, Jim Choate (ravage@ssz.com) wrote:
That's pretty poor reporting even for the combination of Choate &
Slashdot.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011205/pl/indian_money_2.html
Wednesday December 5 8:27 PM ET
Judge Shuts Down Indian Trust System
By ROBERT GEHRKE, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A judge acted Wednesday to protect hundreds of
millions of dollars in a government-run trust fund for American
Indians that has been found to be at risk of security breaches.
The emergency order came a day after a report detailed how easily a
court-appointed investigator was able to hack into the accounting
system at the Interior Department and manipulate financial data. The
government computer system is essentially a bank that manages $500
million a year in royalties from land owned by 300,000 American
Indians.
But U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said that Interior's system
had no firewalls to prevent intrusions, systems to detect hackers,
or auditing methods to determine if account information had been
manipulated.
``You don't expect a thief to leave a calling card?'' Lamberth asked
Justice Department (news - web sites) attorney Matt Fader.
Fader said Interior Secretary Gale Norton had already ordered all
Internet access to the system terminated while firewalls are
installed.
Naturally, the private sector does far better. I couldn't think of a
California pension management company that had similarly poor data
security procedures.
--
Karsten M. Self