Two congressmen warned their House colleagues on Monday that it’s too easy for hackers to break into computers and devices used by lawmakers, and said members of Congress need to do more to keep their data safe.
“The ease with which foreign governments, criminal syndicates, and everyday hackers can access your smartphone, tablet, desktop or laptop is frightening,” the two wrote. “The chief information officer of the House of Representatives has worked tirelessly to protect our offices from millions of cyberattacks every year. But there are steps that members of Congress and their staffs can take each day to better protect our sensitive data.”
Following the discovery of a security flaw in a globally-used telephony signaling protocol, Signaling System No. 7, Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, said in a letter to other House members that there is a rising risk of a digital security breach. They wrote the letter to “raise awareness and improve the security culture in the House of Representatives.”
Lieu and Hurd are two of the four members of the House with degrees in computer science, and they encouraged lawmakers to use a two-factor authentication process and complex passwords for separate accounts on Internet platforms.
They advised members to download encryption applications that protect voice and text data, and said the method, although not foolproof, “constructs a huge barrier to your communications being deciphered.” They also pointed out “up to 89 percent of all public wi-fi networks are unsecured,” and encouraged backing up all data since “ransomware and phishing attacks are on the rise.”
Lieu called for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to investigate in April once a susceptibility to outside surveillance was discovered with Signaling System Number 7, the signaling protocols most telephone companies rely on around the world.
