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Did GAO Just Hand Hackers a Blueprint for Breaking into the FDIC?
by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Wall Street On Parade:
When it comes to demanding transparency in government, Wall Street On Parade typically takes the position that citizens have a constitutional right to their government’s records. We demand those records regularly at Federal agencies using the Freedom of Information Act and at state and local government agencies using the relevant sunshine laws.
This past Wednesday was the first time that we can recall when we read a publicly released report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan watchdog for Congress, that made us queasy that the information should never have been released.
he report concerned the information technology systems of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The GAO seemed to be handing potential cyber attackers a roadmap on how to exploit the FDIC’s many vulnerabilities.
Federal deposit insurance was first created under the Glass-Steagall Act (also known as the Banking Act of 1933) to provide Federally-backed insurance on bank deposits of participating institutions. Federal insurance at that time was desperately needed to shore up public confidence in the nation’s banks in the wake of thousands of bank failures resulting from the stock market collapse and ensuing Great Depression. Following the 2008 Wall Street crisis, FDIC insurance was beefed up and remains critically important to confidence in the U.S. banking system today.
