The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Web site was hacked into in June, and the intruder may have compromised the personal data of thousands of D.C.-area employees and contractors.
Now, weeks later, a whistleblower in the department has contacted the FBI, claiming he’s worried that executives are trying to torpedo an investigation into the hack, sources said. The FBI, in turn, contacted federal prosecutors.
The sources would not reveal the whistleblower’s identity, but he works in the Agriculture’s Inspector General’s Office, sources said. He has told the FBI and federal prosecutors that Agriculture executives were stalling in handing the case over to them, sources said.
No longer willing to wait, the FBI has opened its own investigation, the sources said. And federal prosecutors have also reached out, offering their assistance, sources said.
The sources said it appears that whoever hacked the Agriculture Department had a clear path to the internal server because AT&T — the company tasked with protecting the department’s computers — wasn’t monitoring the site properly.
AT&T refused comment.
But Agriculture Department spokesman Ed Loyd said that the sources’ version of events “is simply not correct.”
“Our full lines of defense were operating and not shut off at any point,” Loyd said in an e-mail to The Examiner. “We believe that the investigation will verify that.”
Furthermore, officials at the Agriculture Department reported the hack to the proper authorities and have cooperated fully with the investigation, Loyd said.
Coming as it did within weeks of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the D.C. government losing the data of thousands of employees, the Agriculture Department hack was especially embarrassing.
“We’re maintaining contact with USDA about this issue,” said Alice Kowalski, spokeswoman for House Agriculture Committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. “The chairman believes Americans have a right to have their personal information protected, and any agency that collects that information has the obligation to make sure it’s secure.”
