During a Nov. 19 hearing before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, four cybersecurity experts declared Healthcare.gov to be unsecure and advised the site be taken offline until security issues are resolved, according to a Reuters report.
Healthcare.gov has experienced numerous technical glitches since its Oct. 1 launch. The poor user experience has caused frustration among many who wish to enroll in a health insurance plan under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and has contributed to the low enrollment figures HHS posted last week.
The cybersecurity experts suggested the site's structural flaws may be more than frustrating — they may be putting users' personal information at risk. The experts, two academics and two private-sector IT experts, agreed the site as it exists today is unsecure. Three of the four recommended the site be shut down until the flaws compromising information security have been fixed.
One of the experts, Morgan Wright, CEO of Crowd Sourced Investigations, said the website's sheer size made it almost impossible to ensure every line of code was risk-free. "When your code base is that large it's going to be indefensible," she said, according to Reuters. "Do you want to defend the Great Wall of China or a very small line?"
Obama Administration officials maintain the personal information entered on the site is secure. "The privacy and security of consumers' personal information are a top priority," said White House spokesman Jay Carney, according to the report. "When consumers fill out their online marketplace applications they can trust that the information that they are providing is protected by stringent security standards."
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