Anthem Blocking Federal Auditor From Doing Vulnerability Scans
chicksdaddy writes Anthem Inc., the Indiana-based health insurer, has informed a federal auditor, the Office of Personnel Management, that it will not permit vulnerability scans of its network — even after acknowledging that it was the victim of a massive breach that leaked data on tens of millions of patients. According to this article, Anthem is citing "company policy" that prohibits third party access to its network in declining to let auditors from OPM's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) conduct scans for vulnerable systems. OPM's OIG performs a variety of audits on health insurers that provide health plans to federal employees under the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, or FEHBP. Insurers aren't mandated to comply — though most do. This isn't Anthem's first time saying "no thanks" to the offer of a network vulnerability scan. The company also declined to let OIG scan its network in 2013. A partial audit report issued at the time warned that the company, then known as WellPoint, "provided us with conflicting statements" on issues related to information security, including Wellpoint's practices regarding regular configuration audits and its plans to shift to IBM's Tivoli Endpoint Manager (TEM) platform.
Bypassing your security is easy. Step 1, Bad Guy kills your dog in front of you. Step 2, Bad Guy then puts the gun to your head and starts removing body parts till Bad Guy has access. Lets face it, its not exactly the Bad Guys problem that you are bleeding to death on your carpet. It's a hell of a plan you've got.