The Government’s Bioterror-Response Website May Be Leaking Sensitive Data

The U.S. government’s chief tool to coordinate responses to bioterror events has for years suffered from big security problems, according to DHS inspectors and a former employee. For more than 15 years, the United State’s first line of defense against a major biological incident has been a program called BioWatch. Its sensors mounted works like canaries in a coal mine. If a terrorist released, say, a deadly aerosolized biological toxin into Grand Central Terminal, sensors would pick up the toxin. Healthcare workers collect samples from the sensors and bring them to BioWatch labs every day.