A new report finds action is needed to enhance information security and privacy controls at Healthcare.gov.
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reported 316 security-related incidents between October 2013 and March 2015 affecting Healthcare.gov. That’s the web portal for the federal health insurance marketplace and its supporting systems.
“I was not surprised by the findings,” says ObamaCare critic Twila Brase, president of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom. “I was actually relieved to see that what we thought was happening now actually had a number. Because it’s one thing to say, Yeah, we think this is going to happen. It’s another thing to say, Well, it happened over 316 times over about 18 months.”
GAO says a majority of incidents involved such things as electronic probing of CMS systems by potential attackers, which did not lead to compromise of any systems, or the physical or electronic mailing of sensitive information to an incorrect recipient.
Even so, Brase says that has not changed her concerns.
“It just shows you that there is great deal of interest in this database,” Brase believes. “And if this database got any bigger, there’d be even more interest and more intensity to these hacker attacks.”
Date: March 30, 2016