On August 29, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem terminated 24 members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) IT department due to alleged failure to comply with basic cybersecurity protocols that enabled hackers to penetrate the networks.
The terminations include Chief Information Officer Charles Armstrong and Chief Information Security Officer Gregory Edwards.
A routine cybersecurity review of FEMA’s systems apparently uncovered the vulnerability. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) added that the security gap was mended before the information could be stolen or damaged. However, a “threat actor” still managed to penetrate the system.
FEMA’s IT employees have been accused of wholesale negligence:
FEMA’s IT employees “resisted any efforts to fix the problem,” avoided scheduled inspections and “lied” to officials about the scope of the cyber vulnerabilities, the agency added.
“Failures included: an agency-wide lack of multi-factor authentication, use of prohibited legacy protocols, failing to fix known and critical vulnerabilities, and inadequate operational visibility,” it said.
Nextgov/FCW
Noem proceeded to rant about the incident, accusing the IT workers not just of negligence, but of refusing to resolve the security lapses out of malicious intent. In typical fashion, she has not provided any evidence for these shocking claims.
“These deep-state individuals were more interested in covering up their failures than in protecting the Homeland and American citizens’ personal data, so I terminated them immediately,” Noem said in a statement.
CNN
The mass firings that have afflicted the DHS have clearly not made the department any more efficient, with Noem struggling to manage the group. The Biden administration never had an issue with FEMA’s IT staff refusing or unable to comply with security protocols.
