Census braces for cyberattacks

guest · Mar 7, 2019

Census braces for cyberattacks
March 6, 2019
https://fcw.com/articles/2019/03/06/census-cyber-plans-gunter.aspx

Public perceptions around data confidentiality and the security of a trove of sensitive information have consistently topped the bureau's major risk areas in the decade leading up to an online census.

Because the information, for the first time, will be coming in digitally rather than on paper, Census is now making sure data is encrypted both in transit from respondents and once it's been received by the bureau, he said. And the bureau isn't taking on the cybersecurity lift alone.

As far as specific actions that the bureau will take to make sure its security is where it needs to be, Smith said federal agencies would conduct penetration testing on Census systems later "this quarter," followed by another round of penetration testing from industry.
Similar testing has been conducted over the last couple years, "and nothing critical or high [risk] has been discovered," he said.
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guest · Jun 4, 2019

Census’ Cybersecurity Plan is Full of Holes, Watchdog Says
June 3, 2019
https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecuri...ecurity-plan-full-holes-watchdog-says/157444/

Federal auditors uncovered numerous holes in the Census Bureau’s plans for combating the significant cybersecurity and tech threats facing the 2020 count, which could leave officials struggling to respond to disruptions.

After GAO pointed out the omission, Census officials updated the plan to include threat sharing activities, but it remains “just one of several [cybersecurity] services” other agencies are expected to perform on the bureau’s behalf, auditors said.

“If the bureau’s plan for mitigating cybersecurity risks to the census omits such key activities, then the bureau is limited in its ability to track and assess those activities, and to hold individuals accountable for completing activities that could help manage cybersecurity risks,” they wrote.
GAO also found the cyber and IT risk management plans were not up to date and included no procedures for monitoring the effectiveness of the bureau’s response to threats. The cyber strategy also failed to put a single individual in charge of overseeing the plans, something that could ultimately prevent them from ever getting executed.

GAO made seven recommendations for improving the bureau’s risk management, and the Commerce Department said it would begin working to put them in place.
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guest · Feb 14, 2020

Report Finds Cybersecurity Issues with US 2020 Census
February 13, 2020
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/cybersecurity-issues-with-us-2020/

A report looking into the US 2020 Decennial Census has flagged concerns over cybersecurity and questioned whether the personal data collected during the study can be kept private.

The US Census Bureau kicked off the 2020 Census count of the population with the enumeration of Alaska in January. However, a report into the ongoing operation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that the bureau faces "significant cybersecurity challenges in securing its systems and data."
Pressure to resolve these challenges is great, as the online launch of the census is just one month away.

According to the GAO report, published on Wednesday, the 2020 Census was designated a high-risk operation in February 2017 and remains so to this day.

"As of February 2020, 28 of the recommendations have not been fully implemented of which six are designated priority recommendations," states the report.
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guest · Oct 9, 2020

DHS: Unknown hackers targeted the US Census Bureau network
October 9, 2020
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...ackers-targeted-the-us-census-bureau-network/

The US Department of Homeland Security said that unknown threat actors have targeted the US Census network during the last year in its first-ever Homeland Threat Assessment (HTA) report released earlier this week.

The US Census Bureau is the largest US federal government statistical agency responsible for collecting statistical data about the US economy and population.
This data is then used by the federal government to allocate over $675 billion in federal funds to tribal, local, and state governments every year.
Attacks included unauthorized access attempts
The DHS says that both state and non-state attackers will likely attempt to compromise or disrupt infrastructure the US uses to support the 2020 US Presidential election, as well as the 2020 US Census.

More specifically, the DHS mentions in the report multiple instances when unknown threat actors have tried gaining access to systems on the US Census network.

"Unidentified cyber actors have engaged in suspicious communications with the U.S. Census public-facing network over at least the last year, including conducting vulnerability scans and attempting unauthorized access," the DHS HTA report reveals [PDF].
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Nation-state backed threat actors to continue attacks
"Federal, state, local, tribal and territorial governments, as well as the private sector, will experience an array of cyber-enabled threats designed to access sensitive information, steal money, and force ransom payments," the HTA report adds.
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DHS: Department of Homeland Security Releases Homeland Threat Assessment

Washington, D.C. – Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad F. Wolf released the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Homeland Threat Assessment (HTA). This first-of-its-kind report synthesizes threat information across DHS including intelligence and operational components.
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guest · Aug 11, 2021

ABS confirms Census 2021 experienced no breaches or interruptions
The ABS received 6.1 million forms through the Census digital service.
August 11, 2021
https://www.zdnet.com/article/abs-confirms-census-2021-experienced-no-breaches-or-interruptions/

Census 2021 has been deemed a "success", with the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) confirming it received an estimate of 6.2 million Census forms by Wednesday 8am AEST.

The peak period online was at 8.06pm when the ABS received about 141 submissions per second. No interruptions, excessive wait times, or security breaches were reported by the ABS, according to Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar.

"I want to thank the millions of Australians who have played their part in making the 2021 Census a success so far, and we want to continue to see the numbers ticking up and the forms coming in," he said.
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The ABS has been focused on preparations for the 2021 Census to avoid an embarrassing repeat of what occurred during Census 2016, when the ABS experienced a series of small denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, suffered a hardware router failure, and baulked at a false positive report of data being exfiltrated which resulted in the Census website being shut down and citizens unable to complete their online submissions.
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The 2021 Census, however, was built using the Amazon Web Services cloud through a contract awarded to PwC Australia.

ANAO in November labelled the preparation for the 2021 Census by the ABS as "partly effective".

"The ABS has been partly effective in addressing key Census risks, implementing past Census recommendations, and ensuring timely delivery of the 2021 Census," the auditor added. "Further management attention is required on the implementation and assessment of risk controls."
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guest · Aug 18, 2021

Hackers breached US Census Bureau in January 2020 via Citrix vulnerability
August 18, 2021
https://therecord.media/hackers-breached-us-census-bureau-in-january-2020-via-citrix-vulnerability/

Unidentified hackers breached US Census Bureau servers in January 2020 by abusing a public exploit for a major vulnerability in the agency’s remote-access servers, a US government watchdog said on Monday.

Census Bureau officials said the hacked servers were not connected to the 2020 Decennial Census networks, and the intruders did not have the opportunity to interact with census results.
Instead, the hackers breached only gained access to servers the agency had been using to provide access to its internal network for its remote workforce, the Office of Inspector General said in a report this week.
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Hackers breached the agency’s Citrix servers
While OIG officials redacted the server vendor name in their report, several other details included in the document suggest that hackers exploited a vulnerability in the agency’s Citrix ADC gateway servers.

Tracked as CVE-2019-19781, this vulnerability allows attackers to bypass authentication on Citrix ADC devices and execute malicious code.
Citrix published a security advisory about this bug on December 17, 2019, and released mitigation steps so its customers could block attacks while the company was still working on a software patch.
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According to the OIG report, the US Census Bureau’s servers appear to have been among the first to have been compromised, with the agency’s Citrix systems getting hacked on the first day of active exploitation.

But while the Census Bureau’s firewall detected the intrusion and blocked the attackers from escalating their intrusion, the OIG said the agency had failed on several other fronts, such as mitigating the vulnerability for weeks despite warnings from the vendor, running end-of-life software on the Citrix servers, and taking weeks to investigate and confirm the breach to CISA officials.
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Furthermore, the OIG said the Census Bureau also did not change default logging settings on the hacked Citrix servers, meaning that by the time it carried out an in-depth investigation, logs containing crucial evidence had been rotated and deleted from the compromised systems.
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