The State Department’s been stuck with the same operating system Condoleezza Rice was using back when George W. Bush was president. Windows XP. It’s no wonder the Chinese have been reading Antony Blinken’s email. Since Joe can print money like mad to advance his Bidenomics plan of spending our way out of bankruptcy, it’s surprising he hasn’t bought Blinky some new computers. There should have been some slush fund out of the many at their disposal they could pull the cash from without bothering Congress.
State Department crippled
The U.S. State Department has been crippled for longer than they want to admit by outdated and un-patched operating systems, running on their steam powered machinery. Windows XP was so popular that nobody wanted to stop using it when better versions came along.
Most Americans didn’t make the switch until they were forced to by all the security holes. Since the system wasn’t being updated, the holes grew ever larger. The Chinese really appreciate that Blinken and his team are still using it.
Left-leaning Politico is aghast at the situation. It didn’t escape them that the findings come hand-in-hand with recent revelations that Chinese hackers breached the email accounts of ranking officials.
"GAO found that many U.S. embassies and missions use vulnerable legacy systems, including WindowsXP"
"…also found that many State Department posts lack not only a chief information security officer, but any cybersecurity personnel whatsoever." https://t.co/liALOmL7F4
— Yew's Finest (@FinestYew) August 5, 2023
That’s because “the State Department is running outdated software at many of its embassies and missions — making them easy prey for hackers,” they write.
Not only that, Blinky and his team of foreign policy makers lack “the cybersecurity personnel to secure critical networks.” The Government Accountability Office is demanding some accountability from the responsible officials in a report which just hit the news stands.
The GAO put it together “before news broke last month that Chinese hackers had hacked into the emails of high-level State Department officials.” Maybe they should have given someone other than the Chinese an advance copy of that report.
Totally compromised by now
Along with distracting from allegations of Biden family influence peddling crimes, which Blinken is also wrapped up in, together with his predecessor John Kerry, this revelation “highlights the fact that concerns about the State Department’s ability to protect its sensitive communications are long-running and deep.”
They probably go all the way back to Hillary Clinton.
Politico claims that “two people familiar with the report” which still isn’t in final, “shared details.” The State Department rats admit they “were not authorized to discuss the report, which isn’t public.”
The ???????? #UnitedStates’ top diplomat is calling for increased diplomatic engagement with ???????? #China’s communist regime following a massive hack of State Department emails by China-linked cybercriminals.
– The Epoch Times pic.twitter.com/BTwTnxcQPh
— Resonant News???? (@Resonant_News) July 22, 2023
They leaked out anyway that “many U.S. embassies and missions use vulnerable legacy systems, including WindowsXP, an operating system Microsoft stopped providing any automatic updates to almost a decade ago.”
It’s a really big deal, they explain. “That means that Microsoft is not developing patches or fixes for any security holes that emerge that hackers could exploit to gain access to those networks.” The State Department’s been totally compromised.
According to Vahid Behazadan, assistant professor of computer science at the University of New Haven, “This is a huge problem in my opinion, if that’s true of course. If no other provider is available to provide the patch, then the attackers can walk right in.” Making it worse, in the remote corners of the world that smell like frying goat, they don’t have “any cybersecurity personnel whatsoever.“
