More Obamacare stupidity: Developers of website linked to Belarus government

Developers linked to the government of Belarus may have placed malicious code inside the healthcare.gov website allowing it to hack into the personal information of consumers.

No - I'm serious.

Washington Free Beacon:

U.S. intelligence agencies last week urged the Obama administration to check its new healthcare network for malicious software after learning that developers linked to the Belarus government helped produce the website, raising fresh concerns that private data posted by millions of Americans will be compromised.
The intelligence agencies notified the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency in charge of the Healthcare.gov network, about their concerns last week. Specifically, officials warned that programmers in Belarus, a former Soviet republic closely allied with Russia, were suspected of inserting malicious code that could be used for cyber attacks, according to U.S. officials familiar with the concerns.
The software links the millions of Americans who signed up for Obamacare to the federal government and more than 300 medical institutions and healthcare providers.
"The U.S. Affordable Care Act software was written in part in Belarus by software developers under state control, and that makes the software a potential target for cyber attacks," one official said.
Cyber security officials said the potential threat to the U.S. healthcare data is compounded by what they said was an Internet data "hijacking" last year involving Belarusian state-controlled networks. The month-long diversion covertly rerouted massive amounts of U.S. Internet traffic to Belarus-a repressive dictatorship located between Russia, Poland, and Ukraine.
"Belarusian President [Alexander] Lukashenko's authoritarian regime is closely allied with Russia and is adversarial toward the United States," the official added.
The combination of the Belarus-origin software, the Internet re-routing, and the anti-U.S. posture of the Belarusian government "makes the software written in Belarus a potential target of cyber attacks for identity theft

well, I am beginning to understand why the Obama administration didn’t want to brief Congress on security issues last December. These security gaps were presumed to be the product of incompetent programming and management. Until now, we didn’t realize that the subcontracts for programming went in part to a firm connected with a hostile regime. Belarus has remained a satellite to Moscow with a dictator in charge ever since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Alexander Lukashenko, and the regime is decidedly unfriendly to the West. Currently, the US doesn’t even recognize the legitimacy of Lukashenko’s government after his rigged 2010 election.

How did this happen? Normally, we’d pay good money to keep hostile regimes from penetrating our government operations. In this case, it looks as though we paid them to do it. Great job, HHS!

Hey, where's FR's regular "Bring Back American Jobs" dude when we need him ?? :)

For context:

WikiLeaks cables describe Belarus leader as 'bizarre' and 'disturbed'
The Guardian, Friday 17 December 2010 16.30 EST

Alexander Lukashenko, the autocratic ruler of Belarus who is poised for re-election for a fourth term this weekend, is an increasingly "bizarre" and "disturbed" ruler who plans to stay in power indefinitely, according to US diplomats in Minsk.

Lukashenko, often referred to as Europe's last dictator because of the heavy-handed nature of his 16 years in power, is certain to win Belarus's presidential election this Sunday, cementing his grip on the ex-Soviet country and provoking criticism from the west, which has tried – without much success – to nudge the country in a more democratic direction.

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