Musk-led DOGE raises cybersecurity alarms

CyberScoop reports that data breach concerns have been raised by cybersecurity and government experts and Democrats over the excessive access to U.S. government systems provided to the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency under the Trump administration.

Aside from obtaining access to the Treasury Department's payment system for managing federal system — which Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., regarded as a "security and management failure" — DOGE was also alleged by Office of Personnel Management employees of having installed an improperly vetted private server that could potentially compromise millions of federal workers' sensitive records. While DOGE and its employees were noted by the White House to have only been given "read-only" access to files, the advisory board's implementation of a new OPM email system poses social engineering and spear-phishing threats to its employees, said House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and House Cybersecurity, Information Technology and Government Innovation Subcommittee Ranking Member Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, in a letter to OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell. "...[W]e fear that Trump Administration officials know full well that their actions threaten to break our government and put our citizens at risk of foreign adversaries like China and Russia gaining access to our sensitive data," wrote Connolly and Brown.