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Bloomberg – no paywall: “Failures in cybersecurity practices at a software company that helps federal agencies manage investigations and FOIA requests allowed two convicted hackers to delete databases, according to internal documents. A software company that handles sensitive data for nearly every US federal agency was the victim of a cyber breach earlier this year due to a “major lapse” in security measures, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. Opexus, which is owned by the private equity firm Thoma Bravo and provides software services for processing US government records, was compromised in February by two employees who’d previously been convicted of hacking into the US State Department. The findings were detailed in separate reports by Opexus and an independent cybersecurity firm, which characterized the incident as an “insider threat attack.” The investigations found that the employees, twin brothers Muneeb and Suhaib Akhter, improperly accessed sensitive documents and compromised or deleted dozens of databases, including those that contained data from the Internal Revenue Service and the General Services Administration. The brothers have since been terminated. The incident, which hasn’t been previously reported, is now being probed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other federal law enforcement agencies, according to five people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case. Muneeb and Suhaib Akhter denied any wrongdoing in separate interviews with Bloomberg News. The damage attributed to the brothers includes the destruction of more than 30 databases and the removal of more than 1,800 files related to one government project, according to the cybersecurity firm’s report. Opexus’ own investigation found that the brothers’ conduct led to an outage of two key software systems used by government agencies to process and manage their records, and in some cases a permanent loss of data. Opexus declined to comment for this story. The federal government processes an avalanche of electronic records every year. Opexus, which is based in Washington, is one of the largest providers of digital tools to manage the deluge. The company says it serves “over 100,000 government users and 200 public institutions in the U.S. and Canada” and helps them to “modernize government processes and workflows.” In January, Opexus merged with Casepoint, a software company that also offers tools for corporations and government agencies to process records, including those in litigation, compliance and investigative settings.
Over the past decade Opexus, which was previously known as AINS, has been awarded more than $50 million in contracts from dozens of federal agencies to handle an assortment of government records, including sensitive court documents and inspectors general investigations and audits. It specializes in helping agencies process records under the Freedom of Information Act…”
