“Putting all your eggs in one basket means I don’t need to go hunting for them — I can just steal the basket.”
Silver Platter
Elon Musk’s ever-alarming Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) now wants to consolidate the federal government’s vast data reserves. They’re currently siloed across government agencies, and DOGE wants to merge them into a sprawling centralized database. Unsurprisingly, security experts told The Washington Post that’s a terrible idea.
It’s not hard to see why. China hasn’t upped its hacking efforts just for kicks; data is incredibly powerful, and hacking groups and foreign adversaries are always trying to get their hands on sensitive information about American citizens and residents, lawmakers, agencies, and companies.
As conventional security wisdom goes, keeping that sensitive information in separate, protected piles across agencies not only makes it more difficult for hackers to find data, but if there’s a breach, ensures that adversaries only get their hands on one small slice of a much bigger pie.
In short, it’s the difference between sending treasure hunters to find and collect individual coins that have been scattered across an ocean, or sending them after one big pot of gold. Which one would you rather track down?
“Separation and segmentation is one of the core principles in sound cybersecurity,” Charles Henderson, an executive at the security firm Coalfire, told WaPo. “Putting all your eggs in one basket means I don’t need to go hunting for them — I can just steal the basket.”
Wider Concerns
Privacy and civil rights groups are also concerned about the cross-agency pooling of federal data, as combining data from across government agencies — from health services to immigration, social security, workforce-related agencies, and so on — can paint more holistic (and thus more targeted and exploitable) portraits of specific US citizens and residents.
As Faith Williams, director of the Effective and Accountable Government Program at the Project on Government Oversight, told WaPo, you “want people to have the least amount of access that they absolutely need.”
“So if someone comes in and asks a question,” she added, “it’s not ‘here’s the master key.'”
Brain Genius Defense Squad
In a statement to WaPo, the White House severely downplayed valid security concerns, with a spokesperson urging that DOGE is comprised of “some of the brightest cybersecurity minds in the nation” and that “every action taken is fully compliant with the law.”
“President Trump is leading the charge to modernize the federal government and make it more efficient — and DOGE is playing a critical role in fulfilling that vision,” said the spokesperson, per WaPo. “By advancing secure data-sharing across agencies, DOGE is enhancing accountability, eliminating fraud, and streamlining operations across the board.”
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