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TSA Website Slammed Over Security Flaws
David Utter
Staff Writer
2008-01-14
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A blistering report from the House Oversight Government Reform Committee bashed the Transportation Security Administration over its website's failings.
 | | TSA Website Slammed Over Security Flaws |  |
Poor acquisition practices, conflicts of interest, and inadequate oversight led to the TSA placing a security-deficient website online to handle citizen complaints about being mistakenly on government watch lists.
The summary of the Oversight report shows the typical failings many assume are standard operating procedure in a government where favoritism through financial or personal connections means more than serving citizens:
TSA awarded the website contract without competition. TSA gave a small, Virginia-based contractor called Desyne Web Services a no-bid contract to design and operate the redress website. According to an internal TSA investigation, the "Statement of Work" for the contract was "written such that Desyne Web was the only vendor that could meet program requirements."
The TSA official in charge of the project was a former employee of the contractor. The TSA official who was the "Technical Lead" on the website project and acted as the point of contact with the contractor had an apparent conflict of interest. He was a former employee of Desyne Web Services and regularly socialized with Desyne's owner.
Security weaknesses failed to protect personal information of citizens using the site, the Committee charged. As Slashdot noted, TSA had been fast to attack Chris Soghoian when he disclosed security problems at the site in February 2007.
Perhaps the six months TSA and the FBI spent investigating him would have been better served in improving the TSA's web presence. It would be nice if Rep. Henry Waxman's Oversight Committee could wrangle some reimbursement from Desyne and the TSA official for the taxpayer costs of that investigation into Soghoian.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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