{"id":59772,"date":"2018-10-31T13:56:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T18:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/?p=59772"},"modified":"2018-10-31T13:56:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T18:56:47","slug":"us-government-riddled-malware-porn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/us-government-riddled-malware-porn\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Government Riddled with Malware After Employee Visits Porn Sites"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Federal Employee Disregards Technology Compliance, Leaving Network Exposed<\/h3>\n<p>After an audit of the U.S. Geological Survey department, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oversight.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/oig-reports\/ManagementAdvisory%20_USGSITSecurityVulnerabilities_101718_0.pdf\">federal report<\/a> was released confirming government networks had been compromised.\u00a0 According to the report, a federal employee exposed U.S. government systems to malware after visiting multiple pornographic sites.\u00a0 During the follow-up investigation, the malware exposure was tracked down to a single employee&#8217;s noncompliance to technology standards.\u00a0 This unnamed employee visited pornographic websites approximately 9,000 times.\u00a0 In addition, they saved the images to USBs and their cell phone.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2018\/10\/30\/howd-this-government-agency-get-infected-with-malware-pages-porn\/?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.80c0976c3cc7\">The Washington Post<\/a>, U.S. government employees are not allowed to visit pornographic websites, or connect unauthorized devices to federal networks.\u00a0 The employee, who is no longer employed with the USGS department, directly violated those regulations.<\/p>\n<p>Since the incident was discovered, the Office of Inspector General has encouraged U.S. government departments to implement a list of known rogue sites.\u00a0 They would then d prevent employees from accessing any websites listed on this list, known as a blacklist.\u00a0 Unfortunately, like any other blacklist methodology, it can be bypassed.\u00a0 \u00a0It only takes finding a malicious or ill-intended\u00a0website that hasn&#8217;t been included on the list, for users to bypass this level of &#8220;protection&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Federal Employee Disregards Technology Compliance, Leaving Network Exposed After an audit of the U.S. Geological Survey department, a federal report was released confirming government networks had been compromised.\u00a0 According to the report, a federal employee exposed U.S. government systems to malware after visiting multiple pornographic sites.\u00a0 During the follow-up investigation, the malware exposure was tracked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":55212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,183],"tags":[56,5573],"class_list":["post-59772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsletter","category-tips","tag-malware","tag-usgs"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>U.S. Government Riddled with Malware After Employee Visits Porn Sites<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The U.S. government networks have been found riddled with malware, after an audit was completed of the U.S. Geological Survey department...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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