Vulnerabilities is their goal

DOGE employees, who are effectively led by White House adviser and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, appeared to have their sights set on accessing the NLRB's internal systems. They've said their unit's overall mission is to review agency data for compliance with the new administration's policies and to cut costs and maximize efficiency.

But according to an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It's possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending.

[...]

The new revelations about DOGE's activities at the labor agency come from a whistleblower in the IT department of the NLRB, who disclosed his concerns to Congress and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in a detailed report that was then provided to NPR. Meanwhile, his attempts to raise concerns internally within the NLRB preceded someone "physically taping a threatening note" to his door that included sensitive personal information and overhead photos of him walking his dog that appeared to be taken with a drone.

[...]

The whistleblower's account is corroborated by internal documentation and was reviewed by 11 technical experts across other government agencies and the private sector.

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Meanwhile, according to the disclosure and records of internal communications, members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to

what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.

The employees grew concerned that the NLRB's confidential data could be exposed, particularly after they started detecting suspicious log-in attempts from an IP address in Russia.

  NPR

Russia.

"I can't attest to what their end goal was or what they're doing with the data," said the whistleblower [...] in an interview with NPR. "But I can tell you that the bits of the puzzle that I can quantify are scary. ... This is a very bad picture we're looking at."

Under pressure from the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, nearly all the staff of the Defense Digital Service — the Pentagon’s fast-track tech development arm — are resigning over the coming month.

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The Defense Digital Service was created in 2015 to help the Pentagon adopt fast tech fixes during national security crises and push Silicon Valley-style innovation inside the Pentagon.

[...]

The resignations will effectively shut down the decade-old program after the end of April.

  Politico

The U.S. government funding needed for non-profit research giant MITRE to develop, operate and maintain its flagship Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Program will expire Wednesday, the company confirmed to Nextgov/FCW.

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The CVE Program provides a standardized system for identifying and cataloging publicly known cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

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Used extensively across sectors — from private industry to national intelligence agencies — the CVE Program provides a standardized framework for identifying vulnerabilities and plays a central role in vulnerability management practices. It was first launched in 1999.

Funding for related programs run by the organization — such as the Common Weakness Enumeration program — will also expire tomorrow, Yosry Barsoum, who directs MITRE’s Center for Securing the Homeland, said in a statement.

  NextGov.com

UPDATE 04/18/2025: