The attack took place in January 2020 on the bureau's remote access servers. U.S. Census Bureau computer servers were exploited last year during a cyber security attack, but it didn't involve the 2020 census, and hackers' attempts to keep access to the system were unsuccessful, according to a watchdog report released Wednesday. The attack took place in January 2020 on the bureau's remote access servers. According to the Office of Inspector General, the Census Bureau missed opportunities to limit its vulnerability to the attack and didn't discover and report the attack in a timely manner.
The statistical agency also failed to keep sufficient system logs, which hindered the investigation, and was using operating system no longer supported by the vendor, the watchdog report said. The bureau's firewalls stopped the attacker's attempts to maintain access to the system through a backdoor, but unauthorized changes were still made, including the creation of user accounts, the report said. In a written response, acting Census Bureau director Ron Jarmin reiterated that none of the systems used for the 2020 census were compromised, nor was the nation's once-a-decade head count affected in any way.
“Furthermore, no systems or data maintained and managed by the Census Bureau on behalf of the public were compromised, manipulated or lost," Jarmin wrote. The 2020 head count data was being used to determine how many congressional seats each state gets and for the drawing of congressional and legislative districts. The data also is used for helping distribute $1.5 trillion in federal spending each year. The Census Bureau on Wednesday released a set of measurements that reveal how people were counted and whether administrative records or a statistical technique were used to fill in the gaps for households where people didn't respond to the 2020 census questionnaire.
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