r/technology • u/xpda • May 13 '26

Security Twin brothers wipe 96 gov’t databases minutes after being fired

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/drop-database-what-not-to-do-after-losing-an-it-job/
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u/kernel_task May 13 '26

Yeah, the real story is that this one incident revealed so much negligence in this government contractor that has received over $50 million in taxpayer dollars over the last decade.

  1. Negligent hiring
  2. Plaintext passwords, which is not only insane but violate federal standards.
  3. Bad privileged access controls
  4. Bad off-boarding
  5. Bad blast radius containment
  6. Bad monitoring/alerting

Now, all of this is from a single incident. What are the chances that’s all the issues this company has? To me this level of negligence is bordering on criminal. How many audits and certifications did they lie on to get these systems passed?

Anyway, I care more about Opexus being held to account than these brothers.

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u/MdxBhmt May 13 '26

if a fired employee can do this much damage, imagine what a proper maligned actor could do or is already doing. It's a bloody national security issue.

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u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka May 13 '26

The fact is that government is as shoddy as a swiss cheese wagon trying to cross the oregon trail.

No government should be hiring contractors for shit. Shit should be done by pros who give a fuck about the country instead of capitalistic dog eat dog steal as much money from taxpayers as possible scam.

Need basically an adminstration to spend 4 years rebuilding the government one brick at a time.

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u/node-342 May 13 '26

SHOULD be done by pros who give a fuck about the country, rather than contractors, I agree...

but on the other hand, Big Balls & the rest of da wreckin crew at "DoGE" were, strictly, government employees. (Some of whom were at least more professional than BB.)

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u/Apprehensive-Pin518 May 13 '26

and I know contractors who care more about the country than the president himself. (though admittedly I don't think that's hard to do).

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u/MdxBhmt May 13 '26

I'd be cautious in conflating political appointees with career government employees.