The very Department of Homeland Security that is seeking to require states to collect and share information on every driver and state ID card holder, including scanned copies of their birth certificates, “suffered more than 800 hacker break-ins, virus outbreaks and other computer security problems over two years, senior officials acknowledged to Congress.”
In one instance, hacker tools for stealing passwords and other files were found on two internal Homeland Security computer systems. The agency’s headquarters sought forensic help from the department’s own Security Operations Center and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team it operates with Carnegie Mellon University.
In other cases, computer workstations in the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration were infected with malicious software detected trying to communicate with outsiders; laptops were discovered missing; and agency Web sites suffered break-ins.
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