The BOP Was Hacked, Sensitive Data Was Leaked. Are We Surprised?
News outlets are reporting that the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the agency within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that runs all 121 active federal prisons, has experienced a major data breach.
According to Cybersecurity News and other reports, this data breach includes both inmate and staff data.
Among the information that was leaked in the breach were names, registration numbers, ages, street addresses, health information, and social security numbers.
Rumors suspect that the breach is the fault of the BOP’s SENTRY system, the data management program used by the BOP, United States Probation Office, and the United States Attorney’s Offices.
This kind of data could be used for identity theft and all kinds of fraud, especially the details contained within the medical information.
If you currently are an inmate or used to be an inmate in federal prison, you know that the BOP exclusively uses antiquated technology. For example, TRULINCS computers and SENTRY both run in a Windows XP environment, which is an outdated operating system that hasn’t received a security update in at least four years, making everything about the federal prison system’s data management systems extremely vulnerable.
There’s really no excuse as to why Congress hasn’t allocated the BOP enough money to upgrade their technology and security systems, especially when handling such vast amounts of sensitive data.