- Jun 9, 2013
- 6,720
The Consular Consolidated Database (CCD), which contains over 290 million passport-related records, 184 million visa records, and 25 million records on US citizens living abroad, has been found to be vulnerable to cyber attack and possibly data tampering.
The discovery was the result of an internal review of the US State Department’s cyber defenses performed several months ago and, according to a Department’s official, “visa-related gaps” have already been fixed.
But according to ABC government sources, not all of the vulnerabilities have been mitigated and/or eliminated.
“Vulnerabilities have not all been fixed,” the source said, and added that “there is no defined timeline for closing [them] out,” despite the US State Department “working continuously” on detecting and closing possible vulnerabilities, as noted by its spokesman John Kirby.
The CCD holds two decades’ worth of personal information on practically anyone who has applied for a US passport or visa, including their photographs and fingerprints. The ability to access it, and change the information in it, would be a boon to terrorist groups and foreign intelligence agencies that seek ways to quietly plant spies within the country, APB noted.Full Article. US passport and visa database open to intrusion? - Help Net Security
The discovery was the result of an internal review of the US State Department’s cyber defenses performed several months ago and, according to a Department’s official, “visa-related gaps” have already been fixed.
But according to ABC government sources, not all of the vulnerabilities have been mitigated and/or eliminated.
“Vulnerabilities have not all been fixed,” the source said, and added that “there is no defined timeline for closing [them] out,” despite the US State Department “working continuously” on detecting and closing possible vulnerabilities, as noted by its spokesman John Kirby.
The CCD holds two decades’ worth of personal information on practically anyone who has applied for a US passport or visa, including their photographs and fingerprints. The ability to access it, and change the information in it, would be a boon to terrorist groups and foreign intelligence agencies that seek ways to quietly plant spies within the country, APB noted.Full Article. US passport and visa database open to intrusion? - Help Net Security
