US Lawmakers Demand Federal Encryption Requirements After OPM Hack

Patrick O'Neill writes: After suffering one of the biggest hacks in federal history at the Office of Personnel Management, the U.S. government is sprinting to require a wide range of cybersecurity improvements across agencies in order to better secure troves of sensitive government data against constant cyberattacks. The top priorities are basic but key: Encryption of sensitive data and two-factor authentication required for privileged users. Despite eight years of internal warnings, these measures were not implemented at OPM when hackers breached their systems beginning last year.

The calls for added security measures comes as high-level government officials, particularly FBI director James Comey and NSA director Adm. Mike Rogers, are pushing to require backdoors on encryption software that many experts, like UPenn professor Matt Blaze, say would fundamentally "weaken our infrastructure" because the backdoors would be open to hackers as well.

Comments

funny...

[ganjadude]

Since they have been telling us how encryption makes the government weaker (in the hands of americans) yet NOW they want to keep it all to themselves????

yeah.... too bad

The IRS can reorganize its internal spending

[perpenso]

If Congress again passes a requirement for departments to do something but refuses to fund it then the executive branch can't do anything.

Not true. The agency can cut spending elsewhere to implement the requirement. Which is what Congress wants the IRS to do, while the IRS want to use the excuse of no new funding to maintain things as they are. It all just theatre.

Re:Back Doors Are Like Anal Sex

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

I'm not really clear on how you ban encryption. Do you lock up all the mathematicians?

Ask Phil Zimmerman about that. The US didn't lock him up, but it wasn't for lack of trying.