You've got to be freaking kidding me. Obama should be tried for treason.
EDIT: It's not funny anymore. Impeach, remove, and imprison Obama.
http://freebeacon.com/the-belarusian-connection/
Click here to print.
The Belarusian Connection
Obamacare network vulnerable to cyber attack
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko with Russian President Vladimir Putin / AP
BY: Bill Gertz Follow @BillGertz
February 3, 2014 8:11 pm
U.S. intelligence agencies last week urged the Obama administration to check its new healthcare network for malicious software after learning that developers linked to the Belarus government helped produce the website, raising fresh concerns that private data posted by millions of Americans will be compromised.
The intelligence agencies notified the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency in charge of the Healthcare.gov network, about their concerns last week. Specifically, officials warned that programmers in Belarus, a former Soviet republic closely allied with Russia, were suspected of inserting malicious code that could be used for cyber attacks, according to U.S. officials familiar with the concerns.
The software links the millions of Americans who signed up for Obamacare to the federal government and more than 300 medical institutions and healthcare providers.
“The U.S. Affordable Care Act software was written in part in Belarus by software developers under state control, and that makes the software a potential target for cyber attacks,” one official said.
Cyber security officials said the potential threat to the U.S. healthcare data is compounded by what they said was an Internet data “hijacking” last year involving Belarusian state-controlled networks. The month-long diversion covertly rerouted massive amounts of U.S. Internet traffic to Belarus—a repressive dictatorship located between Russia, Poland, and Ukraine.
“Belarusian President [Alexander] Lukashenko’s authoritarian regime is closely allied with Russia and is adversarial toward the United States,” the official added.
The combination of the Belarus-origin software, the Internet re-routing, and the anti-U.S. posture of the Belarusian government “makes the software written in Belarus a potential target of cyber attacks for identity theft and privacy violations” of Americans, the official said.
Security officials urged HHS to immediately conduct inspections of the network software for malicious code. The software currently is used in all medical facilities and insurance companies in the United States.
The officials also recommended that HHS use security specialists not related to software vendors for the inspections to reduce further risks.
Officials disclosed the software compromise last week after the discovery in early January of statements by Belarusian official Valery Tsepkalo, director of the government-backed High-Technology Park (HTP) in Minsk.
Tsepkalo told a Russian radio station in an interview broadcast last summer that HHS is “one of our clients,” and that “we are helping Obama complete his insurance reform.”
“Our programmers wrote the program that appears on the monitors in all hospitals and all insurance companies—they will see the full profile of the given patient,” Tsepkalo said June 25 on Voice of Russia Radio.
White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said an intelligence report on the Belarusian software was “recalled by the intelligence community shortly after it was issued.”
The report has prompted HHS to conduct a review to determine if software related to the Affordable Care Act “was written by Belarusian software developers,” she said.
“So far HHS has found no indications that any software was developed in Belarus,” Hayden said. “However, as a matter of due diligence, they will continue to review the supply chain. Supply chain risk is real and it is one of our top concerns in the area of cyber-security.”
A senior administration official questioned whether suspect software mentioned in the report would be valuable to a nation state.
“Nation states are generally not interested in [personal identification information] for its own sake,” the official said. “Given that, we would be surprised to see a nation-state capability applied in this matter. But we are doing a thorough review anyway.”
HSS spokeswoman Dori Salcido referred questions about the matter to Richard A. Olague, spokesman for the HHS’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Olague declined to discuss the software vulnerability.
He also would not say if CMS is conducting a search for malicious software emanating from Belarus.
CMS said in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon that assessments by independent security contractors are conducted regularly by companies such as MITRE and Blue Canopy.
The website also is continuously monitored by CMS technicians and electronic sensors, and weekly penetration tests to check the security of the system are carried out.
A CMS security team in place also seeks to “identify anomalous activity, and to deter and prevent any unauthorized access,” the statement said.
“In addition, as new website functions continue to go live, CMS follows a rigorous and regular change management process with ongoing testing and mitigation strategies implemented in real time,” the statement said. “This occurs on a regular basis, in between the [source code analysis] testing periods.”
A spokeswoman for CGI Federal, the main federal contractor for the healthcare network, also had no immediate comment.
Intel chair calls for probe
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich) said he was surprised by media reports from Belarus indicating “some parts of Healthcare.gov or systems connected to it may have in fact been written overseas.” He called for an independent security review of the Obamacare website.
Rogers said he was especially concerned by the potential software vulnerability because a CGI executive, Vice President Cheryl Campbell, testified to Congress that all software work for the network had been done in the United States.
“We need an independent, thorough security evaluation of this site, and we need the commitment from the administration that the findings will be acknowledged and promptly addressed,” Rogers told the Free Beacon.
“I continue to call on HHS to shut down and properly stress test the site to ensure that consumers are protected from potential security risks from across the globe.”
Details of the software work done by Belarusians could not be learned. Tsepkalo could not be reached for comment and did not respond to emails sent to his technology park website.
The company involved in the software was identified as EPAM, a Belarusian firm with U.S. offices and international clients that conducts programming work in Belarus. Spokesmen for the company did not respond to email or telephone inquiries about the company’s role in developing the Obamacare software.
The officials said there are serious concerns that the Belarusian software contains malicious code that could be used to covertly route data from the Obamacare website to foreign locations.
Additionally, they suspect the Belarusians planted secret “backdoor” openings to the software that will permit surreptitious entry to U.S. government networks by hackers or spies.
The malicious code could reroute Obamacare website data to Belarus, or possibly permit illegal backdoor access to the Healthcare.gov networks and other government and health industry networks, the officials said.
The security vulnerability could provide “access to all necessary personal information of U.S. residents for identity theft and privacy violations,” said one official.
Software security issue follows website problems
Disclosure of cyber attack vulnerabilities follows months of software problems with the Healthcare.gov rollout that began Oct. 1. The troublesome software cost the government more than $400 million. The government spent several months attempting to repair the software.
The software problems prevented hundreds of thousands of people from obtaining health coverage and undermined confidence in the government-run health care system.
President Barack Obama said on Sunday that “glitches” with the Obamacare website were expected but “I don’t think I anticipated or anybody anticipated the degree of the problems with the website.”
“The good news is that right away we decided how we were going to fix it. It got fixed,” Obama said.
Obama said three million people signed up through the website after delays of a month and half.
“Now it’s working the way it’s supposed to and we’ve signed up three million people,” the president said. “What we’re constantly figuring out is how do we continue to improve it?”
According to HHS, between Oct. 1 and the end of the year, 1. 9 million people signed up for healthcare through the federal website. Another 956,000 enrolled through state websites. More than 55 million people visited both the federal and state websites.
The threat of data diversion is compounded by the discovery last year that Belarus covertly diverted massive amounts of U.S. Internet traffic to Belarus.
According to the New Hampshire-based security firm Renesys, which discovered the data diversion, throughout February 2013, Internet traffic from the United States was sent to Belarus. The purpose likely was to allow hackers or government agencies to sift for data for financial, economic, or government intelligence.
The data also may have been modified for other purposes before being returned to the original U.S. and other foreign destinations.
The bulk diversion technique is called border gateway protocol hijacking. It involves using a series of network addresses to mask the data diversion through numerous Internet hubs around the world.
R...
The post that was quoted here has been removedLet me break it down for you:
Officials disclosed the software compromise last week after the discovery in early January of statements by Belarusian official Valery Tsepkalo, director of the government-backed High-Technology Park (HTP) in Minsk.
Tsepkalo told a Russian radio station in an interview broadcast last summer that HHS is “one of our clients,” and that “we are helping Obama complete his insurance reform.”
“Our programmers wrote the program that appears on the monitors in all hospitals and all insurance companies—they will see the full profile of the given patient,” Tsepkalo said June 25 on Voice of Russia Radio.
It was not an IT company that happened to be in Belarus. It was the government of Belarus.
Obama must be impeached and removed. The stakes for the country are simply too high to allow him to continue as President.
Originally posted by sasquatch672As usual, you don't know what you are talking about.
Let me break it down for you:
[i]Officials disclosed the software compromise last week after the discovery in early January of statements by [b]Belarusian official Valery Tsepkalo, director of the government-backed High-Technology Park (HTP) in Minsk.
Tsepkalo told a Russian radio station in an interview broadcast last summer that HHS is “o ...[text shortened]... removed. The stakes for the country are simply too high to allow him to continue as President.[/b]
http://www.park.by/
Today there are 140 resident-companies at Belarus Hi-Tech Park, who have been engaged in high-end software development, customization and IT-services providing for clients in more than 55 countries of the world.
Originally posted by no1marauderI pretty much do know what I'm talking about...the article states that the HTP is a GSE. And besides - we have the best software developers in the world. The United States government does not see fit to hire US citizens to design it's crown jewel website?
As usual, you don't know what you are talking about.
http://www.park.by/
Today there are 140 resident-companies at Belarus Hi-Tech Park, who have been engaged in high-end software development, customization and IT-services providing for clients in more than 55 countries of the world.
Obama is a commie bastard. He has to go.
EDIT: You would think that by now, this a-hole would avoid these rabbit traps. Nope...he's a special breed.
Originally posted by sasquatch672"we have the best software developers in the world."
I pretty much do know what I'm talking about...the article states that the HTP is a GSE. And besides - we have the best software developers in the world. The United States government does not see fit to hire US citizens to design it's crown jewel website?
Obama is a commie bastard. He has to go.
EDIT: You would think that by now, this a-hole would avoid these rabbit traps. Nope...he's a special breed.
according to whom?
Originally posted by sasquatch672Thanks to some of our ill-advised "free trade" treaties, government contracts have to not discriminate against foreign companies.
I pretty much do know what I'm talking about...the article states that the HTP is a GSE. And besides - we have the best software developers in the world. The United States government does not see fit to hire US citizens to design it's crown jewel website?
Obama is a commie bastard. He has to go.
EDIT: You would think that by now, this a-hole would avoid these rabbit traps. Nope...he's a special breed.
Here's some "commie" provisions Belarus has:
HTP Belarus provides special business environment for IT business with incentives unprecedented for European countries.
Due to the legislative initiative of the Belarus government, IT companies are exempt from all corporate taxes, including VAT, profit, real estate and land taxes. Individual income tax has a fixed rate of 9% for the employees of HTP companies.
You would think by now, you'd stop throwing a Chicken Little every time you read some misinformation on a right wing blog. But some people never learn.
EDIT: Maybe you missed that when you started frothing at the mouth after paragraph 1:
The company involved in the software was identified as EPAM
EDIT2: To top it all off, EPAM or "Effective Programming for America"(!) is a US company headquartered in Newtown, PA though it does have a branch office in Belarus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPAM_Systems
The company is also ranked among the best global service providers on The 2011 Global Services 100 by Global Services Magazine and NeoAdvisory, which includes EPAM in the list of the world’s Top Outsourced Product Engineering Vendors for the 3rd year running.
http://www.software-russia.com/companies/epam-systems
Originally posted by no1marauderAnd I'm quite certain that the people working on this project in Belarus are all American citizens with sterling background checks. No, no one associated with the criminal governments of Belarus and Russia would ever want to figure out a way to scam Americans. And the US government SHOULD hire people from other countries to do this work! After all - America has full employment! We SHOULD use taxpayer dollars to employ other countries' workers!
To repeat, the company cited in the OP, EPAM, is a US company with its corporate headquarters in Newtown, PA. It does have a branch office in Belarus.
Originally posted by sasquatch672If I had posted something so wrong on facts that could be easily checked on the Net, I'd be embarrassed. I'm not surprised you are "doubling down"; it just your hysterical, shrieking way.
And I'm quite certain that the people working on this project in Belarus are all American citizens with sterling background checks. No, no one associated with the criminal governments of Belarus and Russia would ever want to figure out a way to scam Americans. And the US government SHOULD hire people from other countries to do this work! After all - America has full employment! We SHOULD use taxpayer dollars to employ other countries' workers!
Get your head out of your a** and stop believing every right-wing nut job who posts an article on the web.
Originally posted by sasquatch672Are you saying there should be a ban on government contractors to use foreign workers?
And I'm quite certain that the people working on this project in Belarus are all American citizens with sterling background checks. No, no one associated with the criminal governments of Belarus and Russia would ever want to figure out a way to scam Americans. And the US government SHOULD hire people from other countries to do this work! After all - America has full employment! We SHOULD use taxpayer dollars to employ other countries' workers!
Originally posted by sasquatch672i am sure you only buy american cars, american shoes, american electronics.
And I'm quite certain that the people working on this project in Belarus are all American citizens with sterling background checks. No, no one associated with the criminal governments of Belarus and Russia would ever want to figure out a way to scam Americans. And the US government SHOULD hire people from other countries to do this work! After all - America has full employment! We SHOULD use taxpayer dollars to employ other countries' workers!
if that belarus company does better, cheaper work, why shouldn't it be hired?
i work at a software company in romania that survived while it's sister company in phoenix arizona did not because the mothership realized we offer cheaper, better work.
Originally posted by no1marauderYou're an extremely smart guy. No one who's read you consistently would dispute that. Why are you so trusting of this government? Because your ideologies align? You can't call yourself non-partisan. Have you ever stopped to think about your own devotion to this government? Are you doing your duty as a citizen to question government?
If I had posted something so wrong on facts that could be easily checked on the Net, I'd be embarrassed. I'm not surprised you are "doubling down"; it just your hysterical, shrieking way.
Get your head out of your a** and stop believing every right-wing nut job who posts an article on the web.
Originally posted by ZahlanziNo, I have bought things that were made in other countries. But I'm not the US government.
i am sure you only buy american cars, american shoes, american electronics.
if that belarus company does better, cheaper work, why shouldn't it be hired?
i work at a software company in romania that survived while it's sister company in phoenix arizona did not because the mothership realized we offer cheaper, better work.
You're oversimplifying the issue, to say the least. The American government should hire Americans wherever and whenever possible. It was certainly possible in this case. Surely, somewhere, Americans could have been found to perform work this cocked-up.