$1 Billion Obacalypse website forgot tiny matter of... security

Someone recently joked that they should call it IdentityTheft.gov. Except we now know they weren't kidding.

“When you develop a website, you develop it with security in mind. And it doesn’t appear to have happened this time,” said David Kennedy, a so-called “white hat” hacker who tests online security by breaching websites. He testified on Capitol Hill about the flaws of HealthCare.gov last week.

“It’s really hard to go back and fix the security around it because security wasn’t built into it,” said Kennedy, chief executive of TrustedSec. “We’re talking multiple months to over a year to at least address some of the critical-to-high exposures on the website itself.”

...Another online security expert—who spoke at last week’s House hearing and then on CNBC—said the federal Obamacare website needs to be shut down and rebuilt from scratch.

Better still: despite reports that HackMe.gov "only" cost $400 million, well, that turns out to be yet another lie. The real figure is about a billion.

The to-date cost of the glitchy Obamacare website has topped $1 billion, easily surpassing the $394 million originally estimated by the Government Accountability Office, according to a Bloomberg Government analysis.

Perhaps more shocking than the site’s likely price tag is the fact that roughly one-third of that amount was spent on contracts awarded during the six months leading up to the site’s disastrous Oct. 1 launch — when those at the top were reportedly aware of the site’s many problems.

It’s important to note that the Bloomberg analysis covers up until Sept. 30, just before the 16-day partial government shutdown. So the final amount awarded to contractors since the launch of healthcare.gov may be more than $1 billion.

“The torrent of late spending — almost $352 million of $1 billion in awards to the top 10 contractors — indicates the magnitude of the work still to be done as opening day approached,” Bloomberg’s Peter Gosselin reported, “and helps explain the information technology problems that have dogged the exchange system since its launch.”

The Bloomberg figure may come as a shock to many Americans. Indeed, despite the GAO stating earlier that its data was incomplete, the $394 million estimate has been widely reported as the final cost...

When Americans get all of the gory realities of government-run health care, they'll be begging for insurance companies.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.