A database system used to assess the visas of travelers in and out of the United States has holes in it, according to a new report.
Cyberdefense experts found holes in the system that could have allowed hackers to steal, edit or falsify visa information of a half-billion records, ABC News reported.
However, agency defenders say the vulnerability was difficult to exploit, and has since been repaired, and that any online system suffers from vulnerabilities.
“[We] view this issue in the lowest threat category,” an agency official said. He added that the hacker would have had to get “the right level of permissions” inside of the system, which is hard to do.
State Department spokesman John Kirby echoed those sentiments, and told ABC in a statement, “We are, and have been, working continuously … to detect and close any possible vulnerability.”
The system is dubbed the Consular Consolidated Database, which is connected to other federal agencies such as the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department. It contains more than 290 million passport-related records, 184 million visa records and 25 million records on U.S. citizens overseas.
