After Hack Attack, Test Version of Healthcare.gov Still Exposed

Published September 5, 2014 10:19am ET



In July, a hacker gained access to a computer server used to test code for the federal government’s Obamacare website HealthCare.gov, according to a Thursday report by the Wall Street Journal‘s Danny Yadron. Although the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stressed no data was taken and no harm resulted, officials remain concerned about the hacker’s ease of access and the potential for great damage. But despite HHS’s assurances after the breach was discovered on August 25 that measures are in place to guarantee security, including “daily security scans and drill hacking exercises,” at least one test site, akatest.healthcare.gov, is still accessible publicly via a simple web browser.

After warning users of potential security issues, different browsers respond to the test site in various ways. For instance, Google’s Chrome browser displays lines of computer code, but the Firefox browser actually shows users (see screenshot below) a somewhat stripped-down version of the normal Healthcare.gov homepage:

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