House Dems say DOGE is leaving publicly exposed entry points into government systems

A letter from a trio of lawmakers says the group has “left multiple government agencies vulnerable to cyberattacks” from foreign entities.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee say the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is jeopardizing cybersecurity by publicly exposing entry points into U.S. government systems, and told the Trump administration it needs to provide information on department officials’ access.

“Decades of efforts by both Republican and Democratic administrations, along with bipartisan collaboration in Congress, have strengthened the federal government’s cybersecurity practices, making them more transparent, enforceable, and resilient,” the trio of lawmakers wrote Tuesday.  “In a matter of weeks, reckless behavior by the unelected and unaccountable DOGE team has undermined this progress and left multiple government agencies vulnerable to cyberattacks by foreign agents and malicious actors.”

The letter to President Donald Trump is one of a series Democrats have fired off in response to personnel moves from an organization Trump established by executive order, moves that have raised repeated cybersecurity and privacy concerns. Agency personnel and outside experts have also sounded alarms about the security risks posed by the department’s maneuvering.

Department personnel gained access to the Treasury Department’s Secure Payment System, noted the Democrats, and they wrote that internet histories show anyone could reach that system from the public internet under Trump. (A judge has temporarily blocked DOGE access.) The same goes for Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Inspector General for Tax Administration and the Office of the Inspector General.

That’s also the case for  Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and Fermi Accelerator National Laboratory, some of which manage systems vital to the U.S. nuclear stockpile, they said.

“It is deeply alarming that an adversary could exploit these vulnerabilities to gain full access to these systems,” wrote Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the ranking member of the Oversight panel; Shontel Brown, ranking member of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation; and Melanie Stansbury, ranking member of the Subcommittee on Delivering On Government Efficiency.

The Democrats asked for information on all the agencies where personnel for the department introduced new technology, external entities where they have exfiltrated data and a list of individuals who have administrative access to federal information technology. They also asked how many cyber incidents have been identified since Trump took over at federal agencies that may have exposed systems, and details about those incidents.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

You can read the full letter here.

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Technology

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Policy

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