US Homeland Security chief reports breach at FEMA, fires 23 employees | Hacker News Reader

US Homeland Security chief reports breach at FEMA, fires 23 employees

reuters.com

40 pointsclwg9 comments

> Noem's statement gave few specifics about the nature of the breach except to blame FEMA's staff, two dozen of whom she said she had fired. Noem said the hack threatened "the entire Department and the nation as a whole" but at the same time said that "no American citizens were directly impacted." She added: "No sensitive data was extracted from any DHS networks."

So it's a breach that's extremely dangerous for the entire nation, but also there is no real impact on American citizens or extraction of sensitive data. Eh?

The entire thing smells of a pretext for a political purge. Either it's a minor incident hugely blown out of proportion, or it's just outright fabricated.

I remember the last time Kristi Noem "fired" something

For those out of the loop:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristi_Noem#No_Going_Back

Nothing to do with Doge-stylists, of course.

> Noem said the hack threatened "the entire Department and the nation as a whole" but at the same time said that "no American citizens were directly impacted." She added: "No sensitive data was extracted from any DHS networks."

What does that even mean. It is either a problem or it isn’t.

Also interesting to read is the FEMA Katrina Declaration, linked to from this article:

https://www.standupforscience.net/fema-katrina-declaration

I have no doubt that there is some waste in all these agencies but the magnitude of change is so big for such a short time. Even if the leaders were excellent, they would need more time to understand the situation and make good choices. Zooming in on this breach, without more details, I find it hard to believe that these 23 people were the cause (versus some larger issue with the organization).

Yeah the ‘presumption of regularity’ has long since expired for this administration. Nobody needs to pretend that the firings had anything to do with some nebulous security breach. It’s obvious they’re pretextual - the only question is why they were actually fired which the inevitable lawsuits will surely discover.

That seems like a lot of heads to roll for a data breach. Certainly there aren't other factors at play.

> That seems like a lot of heads to roll for a data breach.

This looks like a FAANG statement. A data breach shall have more effect on the management than a pat on the back.

Let me guess, the people fired were weren’t ardent Trump brown nosers.

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