How DBA Experts Can Play Greater Role in Protecting Government Websites

Along with professional hackers working for the government and private organizations, many hacking enthusiasts especially teens are getting involved in the act of hacking. They are engaging in cyber crime just to show their capabilities or for fun. It has been recorded that most of the teenaged hackers love to target websites of world’s top secret service agencies like CIA or FBI in order to try their expertise on big players.

A recent report suggests that a 16-years-old hacker has been arrested from England for hacking data from FBI and DHS including the personal data of CIA chief John Brennan and Jeh Johnson, the Homeland security chief.

Soon after discovering that their data have been accessed by the third party, several intelligence agencies of the US started to investigate in the matter and they came to a conclusion the attacker is operating from the England. Soon after getting the report, the British authorities started manhunt and arrested the 16-year-old boy.

Cyber security lapses have become common across the world and to prevent such unwanted happenings, modern companies and updated government agencies have prioritized the importance DBA experts and made their database and cyber security mechanism stronger than organizations run by their average technicians.

Personal Information of 20,000 FBI Employees Leaked

Today every IT professional understands the menace of data theft and aware of the fact that how big loss an organization will have to bear if its database has been attacked by hackers.

However, the British teen hacker has confessed that he traced personal information like names, titles and contact numbers of some 20,000 people working for FBI. In addition, during the interrogation, the British hacker told that he has also accessed the personal information of 9,000 employees of Department of Home Land Security. When asked how he managed to get that information, the 16-year-old hacker revealed using a compromised Department of Justice email for the purpose.

Hacker does not spare the CIA Chief

Authorities from the US assumed that it was the same hacker who once sneaked into the email account of Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson and CIA chief John Brennan. However, the investigating authority has confined that the hackers are not working for any state-run agency and it has revealed that they applied information from an internal phone directory.

While issuing a statement, the DHS said that after conducting the thorough investigation they have concluded that no personal identifiable or sensitive information has been breached yet. The department said hackers have been releasing all the availed information online over the last few months.

The Role of DBAs in Preventing Cyber Attacks

Today, every industry dealing with latest technologies has hired proficient DBAs to protect their database from cyber attack or to fix any kind of technical problem related to their computer system.

Primary and remote DBA experts use specialized software and techniques to prevent hackers from accessing the database of the company they work for. Apart of establishing cyber security mechanism, professional DBAs are experts in capacity planning, database design, configuration, installation, migration, troubleshooting and many other tasks highly required in the industry.

The Threats of Cyber Attacks in Government Agencies

Most of the government websites are laden with personal information including name, home and office address, email address, land and mobile phone number, bank account numbers, family background, blood group, insurance details and many other valuable information of millions of citizens, which can be theft by any unidentified hacker.

The government should prefer efficient DBAs when it comes to protecting the database from cyber attack because professional DBAs are the only experts for the task.