Pelosi, Boehner Demand Extra Safeguards After Cyber Attacks

Pelosi, Boehner Demand Additional Web Safeguards After Thursday's Cyber Attack


The House is investigating how a Brazilian-based hacking group known as “Red Eye Crew” was able to infiltrate 49 lawmakers' websites and leave its moniker along with a profane denouncement of President Barack Obama. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), in a letter sent to Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Dan Beard, made the calls for heightened cyber security in the face of recent actions taken by Beard to strengthen House firewalls and Blackberry security. Here's the text of the letter:

January 28, 2010

The Honorable Daniel P. Beard
Chief Administrative Officer
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Beard:

We request that you initiate an immediate and comprehensive assessment of how hackers were able to deface the websites of nearly fifty House Members and Committees last night.

In the past, we jointly requested that your office review and tighten cybersecurity protections designed to ensure that congressional offices and committees are safeguarded from unauthorized intrusions. We appreciate the efforts you and your cybersecurity team have taken to tighten firewalls, as well as more recent efforts to ensure that official mobile communications devices are secure from hacking and other intrusions.

However, last night’s actions indicate that further review of security procedures are needed. From initial reports, these intrusions appear to be related to one website vendor which has had previous security failures. While many Members have expressed satisfaction with the vendor in question, this is the second time in a year websites hosted and supported by this vendor have been compromised. We therefore request that your office work with the Committee on House Administration to review the security standards for House vendors and to assess whether this vendor, and others, have adhered to those standards. We also request that you take immediate action to protect against breaches of the House firewalls and to ensure website security of all House offices.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,


NANCY PELOSI
JOHN BOHNER
Speaker Republican Leader


Cc: The Honorable Robert A. Brady
Chairman, Committee on House Administration

The Honorable Dan Lungren
Ranking Member, Committee on House Administration




Hackers Infiltrate 49 U.S. House Websites


Congressional investigators are exploring how hackers managed to infiltrate 49 House web sites overnight, zeroing in on the technology vendor that manages some House Web sites.

Only hours after the State of the Union, hackers replaced the usual pages that congressmen and committees use with a profane attack on President Barack Obama. As of Thursday afternoon, many of the affected sites still appear to be down.

Each of the pages is managed by GovTrends, an Alexandria-based provider of web services. House servers host sites for members of Congress, but all members are free to use outside vendors to manage and upgrade their pages. This practice appears to have allowed third parties access to the Web sites outside of congressional firewalls.

Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the House chief administrative officer, said that the working theory is that the penetration happened during an upgrade that GovTrends was making to its own system. He said his office is working with the company to figure out how the breach occurred.

“We’re discussing our options,” Ventura said.

Problems have arisen with the same vendor in the past. In August, something similar happened to 18 House members who worked with GovTrends. Officials at the time said staffers on the Hill had not set challenging enough passwords to thwart the attackers. Many of the same offices appear to have been hit again.

GovTrends employees did not return multiple phone or email messages seeking comment.

The successful attacks comes despite the addition of security safeguards in recent years, said a Democratic leadership aide, and it's expected that a review will be ordered by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

This attack could increase the pressure by House officers to block GovTrends as a contractor or reconsider policies about using outside technology vendors, security experts say. The House administration manages and hosts about 60 percent of all sites, but members are reimbursed if they want to use outside firms.

On each of the hacked sites, the usual material was replaced by a white screen and the words: "F— OBAMA!! Red Eye CREW !!!!! O RESTO E HACKER !!! by HADES; m4V3RiCk; T4ph0d4 — FROM BRASIL."

Information technology experts at the Capitol are still trying to confirm the origin of the attack. The Praetorian Security Group, a New York-based firm that specializes in detecting computer intrusions, has fingered the Red Eye Crew, an anonymous group that has claimed credit for defacing thousands of web sites. It appears that the group is based in Brazil, and the same loose-knit crew also claimed credit for hacking into 453 government sites in Brazil last August,

The website for Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was hit, as were the home pages of Reps. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), David Roe (R-Tenn.), Charlie Wilson (D-Ohio), John Tierney (D-Mass.), Charles Gonzales (D-Texas), Brian Baird (D-Wash.), John Barrow (D-Ga.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), John Boccieri (D-Ohio), John Olver (D-Mass.), Bobby Bright (D-Ohio), Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), Travis Childers (D-Miss.), Andre Carson (D-Ind.), John Campbell (R-Calif.), Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and other members.

Representatives of several of these offices did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The apparent attacks, first reported by Hotline's Erin McPike, come days after four men were arrested for attempting to tamper with the phone lines in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office. But investigators say the two events are not linked. In October, a highly sensitive House ethics committee document became public after a staffer inadvertently made it accessible on a file sharing network.

Ventura said this week’s breach will likely lead to stronger enforcement of policies already in place.

“After this happened in August, there was a reiteration and a reaffirmation with all of our vendors,” he said. “You can say that you would like the standards at a certain level or you can insist on it. I think what you’re going to see going forward is an insistence to the adherence of policy, as opposed to just the suggestion that the policy standard has to be a certain level.”


Sources: The Hill, Politico, Newser