Security Founder John McAfee: "Obamacare is a Hacker’s Wet Dream"

Security founder John McAfee of McAfee Associates, a computer anti-virus company, reflects on Obamacare: "This Is A Hacker's Wet Dream".

NEIL CAVUTO: What do you make [of Obamacare]? Obviously, a lot of people have been focusing on the law but not really cognizant of the privacy part of the law, and how hackers could have a field day with it. Is it that bad?

JOHN McAFEE: Oh, it is seriously bad. Somebody made a grave error, not in designing the program but in simply implementing the web aspect of it. I mean, for example, anybody can put up a web page and claim to be a broker for this system. There is no central place where I can go and say, 'Okay, here are all the legitimate brokers, the examiners for all of the states and pick and choose one.'

Instead, any hacker can put a website up, make it look extremely competitive, and because of the nature of the system, and this is health care, after all, they can ask you the most intimate questions, and you’re freely going to answer them. What’s my Social Security number? My birth date? What are my health issues?

[CROSSTALK]

McAFEE: Well, here's the problem -- it's not something software can solve. I mean, what idiot put this system out there and did not create a central depository? There should be one website, run by the government, you go to that website and then you can click on all of the agencies. This is insane. So, I will predict that the loss of income for the millions of Americans who are going to lose their identities -- I mean, you can imagine some retired lady in Utah, who has $75,000 dollars in the bank, saving her whole life, having it wiped out one day because she signed up for Obamacare. And believe me, this is going to happen millions of times. This is a hacker's wet dream. I cannot believe that they did this.

McAfee is now a subsidiary of Intel. Click on the first link above for the history.

This story on Real Clear Politics came out a couple weeks ago, but I just saw it. I believe the risks described by McAfee are very real.

His estimate "this is going to happen millions of times" does seem a bit far-fetched.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com