[Infowarrior] - OPM won a cybersecurity award. For ‘most epic FAIL.’

[Richard Forno]

OPM won a cybersecurity award. For ‘most epic FAIL.’

By Andrea Peterson August 6 at 8:51 AM
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/08/06/opm-won-a-cybersecurity-award-for-most-epic-fail/

LAS VEGAS -- The Office of Personal Management won a cybersecurity award Wednesday night. But it was for "most epic FAIL."

The government agency was "honored" at The Pwnies, a comedic awards show held at the Black Hat USA cybersecurity conference, for breaches that exposed the personal information of tens of millions of current and former federal workers, including the fingerprints of more than a million people who applied for government background checks.

The Pwnie Awards get it's name from the hacker slang "pwn" for "owning" or taking over something. It comes complete with trophies in the form of golden "My Little Pony"-style toys.

"These people have let you down not only as an industry, but as personal human beings," said security researcher Chris Valasek in his description of the category OPM won during the event."It's the equivalent of your parents saying they're not angry at you, they're just disappointed."

No one from the agency appeared to accept the award.

OPM was also nominated for "epic 0wnage," but lost to controversial commercial surveillance vendor Hacking Team -- which had its inner-workings exposed last month after a cyberattack.

Morgan Marquis-Boire, the director of Security at First Look Media and a researcher who worked on reports that tied the Italian company to governments with questionable human rights records before the leaks, jokingly accepted the award on Hacking Team's behalf.

This was the 9th consecutive year of the Pwnies in Las Vegas and nominees competed in ten categories, including ones honoring researchers who discovered the best security vulnerability.

There's was also a best song category that features -- what else -- sick beats about cybersecurity.

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It's better to burn out than fade away.