The Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Information Network has suffered unauthorized access that potentially exposed sensitive planning details for major events.
The platform serves as a critical tool for federal, state and local agencies to coordinate responses to emergencies and share intelligence.
The incident was first reported by Nextgov, which obtained a statement from the DHS.
“The Department of Homeland Security is aware of a recent cyber incident involving a specific, unclassified legacy information sharing environment. We immediately took action to isolate the affected systems, mitigate the vulnerability, and launch a comprehensive forensic investigation. There is no indication that classified networks were impacted, and the system remains operational for our partners. As this is an ongoing investigation, we cannot provide further operational details at this time.”
Democratic Senator Mark R. Warner, who is Vice Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has issued a statement on the incident.
“I am deeply concerned by the recent revelation of a compromise of DHS’s Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN). For more than two decades, the HSIN platform has been used by federal, state, local, Tribal, territorial law enforcement, and private sector partners, to share intelligence, plan, coordinate, and collaborate on events, and respond to incidents…
The information in HSIN, while not classified, is highly sensitive, and its exposure risks national security. DHS and DOJ must thoroughly investigate who breached HSIN, what the attackers accessed, and ensure all DHS partners are provided with timely information and the tools necessary to mitigate any associated risks from the breach.
Furthermore, DHS must take a serious look within and account for how this happened and ensure a breach like this does not happen again. The homeland security community needs to have confidence that the information in HSIN is secure, and the American public needs to be able to trust that the Department responsible for America’s cybersecurity has its own house in order.”
Follow us on X, Facebook and TelegramGenerated Image: Midjourney