A Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer breached Treasury policies by sending an email with unencrypted personal information. According to testimony from a senior government cybersecurity official in a federal lawsuit, Marko Elez, who worked at the U.S. Treasury, emailed a spreadsheet containing unencrypted personally identifiable information to two Trump administration officials. This occurred before Elez resigned in early February following the discovery of racist social media posts linked to him.
Details of the security breach emerged in a court filing on Friday, which included testimony by David Ambrose, the chief security and privacy officer at the Treasury’s Bureau of Fiscal Services. Ambrose stated that the Treasury conducted a forensic analysis of Elez’s department-issued laptop after his resignation, uncovering the security lapse. The filing did not specify the exact data shared but described it as including names, types of transactions, and amounts of money.
Ambrose noted that Elez acted against department policies since the data was neither encrypted nor approved before being sent. Bloomberg first reported the court filing on Friday. Elez was rehired on February 18 and now works at the Social Security Administration. In response to the filing, the coalition of U.S. attorneys general that initiated the suit stated that Ambrose’s declarations did not alleviate concerns regarding the onboarding process of the Treasury DOGE Team.
— news from TechCrunch
