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CISA’s acting head uploaded sensitive files into public version of ChatGPT
- danso 9mo agoThe Dept of Homeland Security has had its own internal gen-AI chat bot since before Trump took office [0]. That this guy couldn’t make do with that, and didn’t think through the repercussions of uploading non-public documents to a public chatbot doesn’t bode well for his ability to manage CISA [0] https://www.dhs.gov/archive/news/2024/12/17/dhss-responsible-use-generative-ai-tools https://www.dhs.gov/archive/news/2024/12/17/dhss-responsible...
- ProAm 9mo agoIsn't their internal chat bots provided by grok or Oracle AI?
- gnarbarian 9mo agodot is self hosting several openai and Claude models on chat.dot.gov it's awesome
- sv123 9mo agoSounds about on par with what I would expect competence wise.
- ceejayoz 9mo agoHand-picked by Noem, so yeah. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhu_Gottumukkala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhu_Gottumukkala > In April 2025, secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem named Gottumukkala as the deputy director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; he began serving in the position on May 16. That month, Gottumukkala told personnel at the agency that much of its leadership was resigning and that he would serve as its acting director beginning on May 30.
- lm28469 9mo ago> Gottumukkala had requested to see access to a controlled access program—an act that would require taking a polygraph Are the US ok? It's 2026 not 1926
- ceejayoz 9mo agoThe Feds love polygraphs. Still very much in active use.
- htek 9mo agoThe polygraph is still used for security vetting, today. No word on whether they still read a lamb's entrails for portents or consult the dead with a Ouija board.
- rbanffy 9mo ago> No word on whether they still read a lamb's entrails for portents or consult the dead with a Ouija board. Don’t give RFK Jr ideas.
- tremon 9mo agoIt's actually a few minutes to 1929, so that checks out.
- rbanffy 9mo agoFeels like 1935
- jabroni_salad 9mo agoThese days I think that thing's main purpose is to bounce people who would otherwise request access that they don't really need. If it isn't worth sitting down for the machine you don't really need it.
- Jach 9mo ago> Gottumukkala failed the polygraph in the final weeks of July. The Department of Homeland Security began investigating the circumstances surrounding the polygraph test the following month and suspended six career staffers, telling them that the polygraph did not need to be administered. This is pretty insane though.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- JohnMakin 9mo agoThis administration's op-sec has been consistently "barney fife" levels of incompetence.
- winddude 9mo agothis administrations competence on anything and everything has been a kid eating glue
- theyneverlear 9mo ago[dead]
- jermaustin1 9mo agoIf it wasn't meant to be eaten, it shouldn't have tasted so good!
- rbanffy 9mo agoWe should get their heads checked for crayons.
- malfist 9mo agoOne of them has bragged about how difficult it is to identify a giraffe, but that he's done it three times
- FireBeyond 9mo agoAnd probably also been asked to draw a clock at a certain time, too.
- mcs5280 9mo agoPretty sure that's a feature, not a bug
- JohnMakin 9mo agoPersonally I believe this but it gets into conspiracy theory real quick. There are far simpler explanations.
- Insanity 9mo agoPeople were already careless with social media which was openly public. I imagine it’ll be worse with these LLMs for the average person.
- Smar 9mo agoThis is the real risk I think. Currently there are no means to even pretend to get anything deleted from LLMs either.
- Insanity 9mo agoYeah and ultimately those tools will be used as advertising machines. You'll get hyper specific targeted ads. I'm pretty pessimistic about the future with LLMs, but I can't see it being a net positive for humanity in the long run.
- chrisweekly 9mo ago"pessimistic... but can't see it being positive" why "but"?
- rvz 9mo agoThis is a "Cybersecurity chief" causing an intern-level IT incident. In many industries, this would be a rapid incident at the company-level and also an immediate fireable offense and in some governments this would be a complete massive scandal + press conference broadcasted across the country.
- geodel 9mo agoI think he is real deal. I mean in reality he learned or knows very little about technical matters. No fraud needed.
- shrubble 9mo agoThen again the CTO of Crowdstrike that had their anti-malware code update cause huge problems, is the same guy that was CTO of McAfee when their AV code update, caused huge problems.
- Braxton1980 9mo agoThe CTO created the update? Otherwise it's not the same situation
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- kakacik 9mo agoNo but they could have easily created the culture that massively increased the probability of such mishaps... we have all seen how not OK work environment negatively affects deliveries right, or read about boeing fiasco(s). Not an insider just to be clear here so maybe just really bad luck. But no benefit of doubt for the third strike.
- lysace 9mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhu_Gottumukkala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhu_Gottumukkala He was the 'CTO' of South Dakota and later the CIO/Commissioner of the South Dakota Bureau of Information and Telecommunications under governor Kristi Noem. Edit: (From a European perspective) it seems like the southern states really took over the US establishment. I hadn't really grasped the level of it, before.
- JoeBOFH 9mo agoSouth Dakota is in the northern portion. But to your statement, historically speaking the southern states after the civil war kept trucking along in terms of power and influence.
- ceejayoz 9mo agoThe Dakotas weren't really north/south in the Civil War context; only about 4k people lived there in 1860. It was largely empty land, and not a state until 1889.
- brightbeige 9mo ago4k white settlers
- dstroot 9mo agoSouth Dakota has a population of less than 1 million people and the complexity of a CTO job of a state like South Dakota would be quite low. It is < 0.3% of the US Population and likely has de minimis benefit programs.
- floren 9mo ago> Edit: (From a European perspective) it seems like the southern states really took over the US establishment. I hadn't really grasped the level of it, before. It's good to know the Americans aren't the only ones who never look at maps outside their own country
- mythrwy 9mo ago
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- booleandilemma 9mo agoFrom wikipedia: He graduated from Andhra University with a bachelor of engineering in electronics and communication engineering, the University of Texas at Arlington with a master's degree in computer science engineering, the University of Dallas with a Master of Business Administration in engineering and technology management, and Dakota State University with a doctorate in information systems. And he still manages to make a rookie mistake. Time to investigate Mr. Gottumukkala's credentials. I wouldn't be surprised if he's a fraud.
- Bhilai 9mo agoI wonder how far removed the interim director of the CISA is from any real world security. I bet they have not seen or solved any real security problems and merely are an executive looking over cybersec. This probably is another example of why you need rank and file security peeps into security leadership roles rather than some random exec.
- jimt1234 9mo agoWell, at least there's gonna be a swift and appropriate punishment. LOL
- Quarrelsome 9mo agoI adore that this guy had security clearance and I doubt I'd clear that bar. Last time I looked at the interview there was a question: > have you ever misused drugs? and I doubt I'd be able to resist the response: > of course not, I only use drugs properly. also I wouldn't lie, because that's would undermine the purpose. Still sad I can't apply for SC jobs because I'm extremely patriotic and improving my nation is something that appeals.
- stackghost 9mo agoFWIW I have held a security clearance during my career, and telling them I smoked weed was not a dealbreaker. What they are ultimately looking for is reasons why you could be coerced into divulging classified information. If you owe money due to drugs/gambling, etc, that's where it becomes a dealbreaker.
- rbanffy 9mo agoThe general rule is not to lie to them, because they will interview all your friends and someone somewhere will rat you out. It’s pointless to try to hide anything during these interviews, and, if you do it, then it’s a dealbreaker.
- Quarrelsome 9mo agowait, so I can apply and be honest? Sick! I just poorly misassumed they had classicly archaic interpretations of drugs.
- codezero 9mo agoI don’t have a clearance so someone can correct me, I believe you still have to have not used drugs in the prior year.
- stackghost 9mo ago>I don’t have a clearance so someone can correct me Why would you give an answer when by your own statement, you're not knowledgeable? What a strange mindset. >I believe you still have to have not used drugs in the prior year. My own experience does not agree with this speculation.
- BiscuitBadger 9mo agoThere have to be GovCloud only LLMs just for this case. I swear this government is headed by appointed nephews of appointed nephews. I keep thinking back about that Chernobyl miniseries; head of the science department used to run a shoe factory. No one needs to be competent at their job anymore
- dmix 9mo agoThe article says > [ChatGPT] is blocked for other Department of Homeland Security staff. Gottumukkala “was granted permission to use ChatGPT with DHS controls in place,” adding that the use was “short-term and limited.” He had a special exemption to use it as head of Cyber and still got flagged by cybersecurity checks. So obviously they don't think it's safe to use broadly. They already have a deal with OpenAI to build a government focused one https://openai.com/global-affairs/introducing-chatgpt-gov/ https://openai.com/global-affairs/introducing-chatgpt-gov/
- grayhatter 9mo ago> So obviously they don't think it's safe to use broadly. More likely, everything gets added to the list because there shouldn't be false positives, it's worth investigating to make sure there isn't an adjacent gap in the security systems.
- kulahan 9mo agoYou are uploading information to the chat system every time you use it. Doubly true if you’re having it analyze or work with documents. I presume pulling this data out is simple if you’re, say, China. There really no security to investigate. Without a private instance, it’s an absolute non-starter for anything classified.
- patrickmcnamara 9mo ago> presume pulling this data out is simple if you’re, say, China Why would you presume that?
- simbleau 9mo agoIt’s absolutely necessary to have ChatGPT.com blocked from ITAR/EAR regulated organizations, such as aerospace, defense, etc. I’m really shocked this wasn’t already the case.
- lysace 9mo ago"The report says Gottumukkala requested a special exemption to access ChatGPT, which is blocked for other Department of Homeland Security staff."
- rbanffy 9mo agoThat they got this is shocking in itself.
- lysace 9mo agoSurely that must have been approved by the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, his former boss back in SD.
- rbanffy 9mo agoEvery cause that led to this event is, in itself, quite shocking. I feel for my American friends, and hope they never again optimise their government for comedy value.
- mcmcmc 9mo agoUnfortunately it’s not so shocking anymore. The Secretary of Defense texting imminent war plans to a journalist in a Signal group kinda jumped the shark.
- granoIacowboy 9mo agoSecretary of War
- 7777332215 9mo agoWhere does this "cybersecurity monitoring" take place? On OpenAIs side? Or some kind of monitoring tools on the devices themself?
- seanhunter 9mo agoIn any enterprise, normal would be to have monitoring on all ingress and egress points from the network and on devices themselves. You can't only have monitoring on managed devices because someone might BYOD and plug in an unmanaged device/connect it to internal wifi etc. You bring in vendors and they need guest wifi to give you a demo, you need to be able to give them something to connect to but you don't want that pipe to be unmonitored.
- 7777332215 9mo agoWhat I'm really asking/wondering is how (and who or which party) figured out that this was leaked, and secondly how that propagated to the public. I don't really expect to find that answer. But if I had to guess OpenAI found out first, because employees there are more likely to leak the fact that the leak happened. But also, how was it caught in the first place? Was it automatically flagged because content scanners automatically identified this as a concern, or was his account specially flagged for extra monitoring because of who he is?
- totetsu 9mo agoit says "according to four Department of Homeland Security officials with knowledge of the incident." and "according to the four officials, each of whom was granted anonymity for fear of retribution." .. so It seems to be an internal lead. as the post above says.. on managed devices, there can be an enforced vpn, that monitors all traffic coming and going, and while its at it, strip out the encryption and look inside the packets, and apply heuristics like .. what is the host domain, is it from a known LLM site.. and is its a POST message sending data, and then does the text of that data have a string matching "INTERNAL USE ONLY". I assume something like this.
- grayhatter 9mo agoLeaked is not the correct word here. Generally as it's used, it implies some intent to disclose, the information for it's own purposes. You would call a disclosure to the war thunder forums a leak, because the intent was to use that information to win an argument. You wouldn't call Leaving boxes of classified information in a wearhouse where you'd normally read them a leak. (At least not as a verb). Likewise you wouldn't call it a leak if you mistakenly abandoned them in a park. That said, IIRC For Official Use Only is the lowest level of classification (note not classified) it's not even NOFORN. It's even multiple levels below Sensitive But Unclassified. So, who cares? Much more significant is he failed the SCI/full poly... that means you lied about something. Yes I know polys don't work, but the point of the poly is to try to ensure you've disclosed everything that could be used against you, which ideally means no one could flip you or manipulate you. The functional part is to determine if you have anxiety about things you might try to hide, because that fear can be used against you. No fear/anxiety, or nothing you're trying to hide means you're harder to manipulate. That feels bad even ignoring the whole hostile spys kinda thing.
- observationist 9mo agoIt's bizarre that someone would choose to use the public, 4o bot over the ChatGPT Pro level bot available in the properly siloed and compliant Azure hosted ChatGPT already available to them at that time. The government can use segregated secure systems set up specifically for government use and sensitive documents. It looks like he requested and got permission to work with "For Unofficial Use Only" documents on ChatGPT 4o - the bureaucracy allowed it - and nobody bothered to intervene. The incompetence and ignorance both are ridiculous. Fortunately, nothing important was involved - it was "classified because everything gets classified" bureaucratic type classification, but if you're CISA leadership, you've gotta be on the ball, you can't do newbie bullshit like this.
- bilekas 9mo ago> It's bizarre that someone would choose to use the public, 4o bot over the ChatGPT Pro level bot available in the properly siloed You're assuming the planted lackey has any knowledge of these tools.
- direwolf20 9mo agoOr any reason to give a shit and use the less convenient tool.
- TeMPOraL 9mo agoAnother example why shitty software can easily become a compliance or security problem.
- sitzkrieg 9mo agotoday FOUO or CONFIDENTIAL, maybe tomorrow or next week SECRET and after that seemed fine maybe some TOP SECRET or throw in a SAP for fun! call it the maralago bathroom
- reactordev 9mo agoIt’s happening all across corporate too
- itisit 9mo agoAnd in all manner of regulated industries. People simply cannot resist throwing anything and everything at the magic text machine. A company can control its IT assets, but if the content is displayable on a screen, rest assured users will just take photos and upload to their personal LLM accounts to get the generative answers they endlessly desire.
- reactordev 9mo agoI’m actually shocked that security teams aren’t up in arms over this exfiltration of company secrets. I know some companies that are running their own models and agents but the vast majority are copilot/claude/codex’ing away sending all that sweet sweet IP to 3rd parties
- disgruntledphd2 9mo agoYou can get agreements with all of the providers around data sharing etc and host the models themselves through AWS or another cloud provider. That's what clueful companies are doing, as expecting people not to use this stuff is doomed to fail.
- bilekas 9mo agoIf I did this with a banal internal documentation at work I would be written up and maybe fired over breaking known policy. This administration is so ridiculously incompetent, and interim head of cyber security.. leaks. The onion wouldn't write this.
- throwaway85825 9mo agoChalaki
- RegW 9mo agoI really enjoyed unchecking all those cookie controls. Of the 1668 partner companies who are so interested in me, a good third have a "legitimate interest". With each wanting to drop several cookies, it seems odd that Privacy Badger only thinks there are 19 cookies to block. Could some of them be fakes - flooding the zone? Damn. I forgot to read the article.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- direwolf20 9mo agoThe same cookie can be shared with several partners or collected data can be passed to the partners. It's not a cookie law — it's a privacy law about sharing personal data. When I know your SSN and email address, I might want to sell that pairing to 1668 companies and I have to get your "consent" for each.
- bsaul 9mo agoBTW, what's the current status on LLMs and confidential documents ? Which license from which suppliers are fine and which aren't ?
- I_am_tiberius 9mo agoMy assumption is that it goes the other direction on a permanent basis.
- Kapura 9mo agothe current united states government is staffed mostly with unserious people, or people who are serious about doing crimes against humanity. there's very little in between.
- kube-system 9mo agoThe vast majority of government staff are career professionals who know what they are doing, not political appointees who showed up in the past year.
- Terr_ 9mo agoRight, if we change parent-poster's "staffed mostly with" to "controlled mostly by", I think that's an adequate fix.
- nxobject 9mo agoAnd who've been subjected to a firing spree I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. It's the political appointees that are, frankly, there because of the connections and their willingness to, say, "work towards the ultimate leader".
- _tk_ 9mo agoI’m a little surprised by the takes in the comments. Obviously, heads of departments or agencies, CEOs, or similar personnel are generally not in the same league as normal employees when it comes to compliance. Productivity and efficiency are key for their work. I am sure there are lots of Sysadmins here, that had to disable security controls for a manager or had to configure something in a way to circumvent security controls from actually working. I have been in many situations where I have been asked by IT colleagues if doing something like that was fine, because an executive had to read a PowerPoint file NOW.
- superb_dev 9mo agoObviously those kinds of stories are common, but you can’t seriously be suggesting that it is a good or acceptable thing? Execs are just as stupid as your average person and bypassing security controls for them puts an organization at an even greater risk due to the kinds of information they have access to. They just get away with it because they’re in charge.
- _tk_ 9mo agoYes.
- jorblumesea 9mo agoIt touched a nerve because no one in the trump admin is qualified to do their job. There's a lot of corruption and a lot of people getting access to things they shouldn't due to their relationship and loyalty, not merit. There's a big difference from a sys admin having super user access and some random politically connected hack abusing their privilege. DOGE/Musk, noem, Kash, hegseth, etc.
- hackyhacky 9mo agoSysadmins are afforded special leniency because of their demonstrated competence. Their leeway is earned. In this case, the "cyber security chief" has no proven skill other than absolute loyalty to his boss, which justified his skipping the usual vetting procedure.
- 1970-01-01 9mo agoOnce again, if you or I did this, it's federal crime and federal time. But when the chief does it, it's an oopsie poopsie "special exemption".
- throwaway2037 9mo ago> Once again, if you or I did this, it's federal crime and federal time. For a single incident? I doubt it. And, you need to show (criminal) intent. We still have no idea if this was accidental. To be clear, before this incident, he looked like just another senior IT admin. I still see it that way.
- edferoci 9mo agoI wonder how they could discern the upload of sensitive documents from non-sensitive ones
- alecco 9mo agoHow is such a critical position filled with a foreign national?
- ravoori 9mo agoHe's a naturalized US citizen
- joshcsimmons 9mo agoThis is a very good question. Seems like it would negatively affect our security posture.
- throwaway2037 9mo agoI Googled for "cisa employment nationality requirements". I got a bunch of pages from CISA itself about how to apply for various jobs: recent grad, experienced specialist, and military vet. All have a bold statement under eligibility that says: "US Citizenship is required." It think it is safe to assume that Dr. Madhu Gottumukkala is a naturalised US citizen.
- iugtmkbdfil834 9mo agoI would like to be able to say that it is uncommon, but based on what I am seeing in my neck of the woods, all sorts of, one would think, private information is ingested by various online llms. I would have been less annoyed with it had those been local deployments, but, uhhh, to say it is not a first choice is being over the top charitable with current corporates. And it is not even question of money! Some of those corps throw crazy money at it. edit: Just in case, in the company I currently work at, compliance apparently signed off on this with only a rather slim type of data verbotten from upload.
- pelasaco 9mo ago> Cybersecurity monitoring systems then reportedly flagged the uploads in early August. That triggered a DHS-led damage assessment to determine whether the information had been exposed. So it means, a DLP solution, browsers trusting its CA and it silently handling HTTP in clear-text right?
- tw04 9mo agoI for one, after doing a bit of reserach, was shocked to find out the person in question is apparently completely unqualified for the job (if him pasting sensitive information into public ChatGPT didn't already make that abundantly clear). But the highlight from his Wikipedia page is this one: >In December 2025, Politico reported that Gottumukkala had requested to see access to a controlled access program—an act that would require taking a polygraph—in June. Gottumukkala failed the polygraph in the final weeks of July. The Department of Homeland Security began investigating the circumstances surrounding the polygraph test the following month and suspended six career staffers, telling them that the polygraph did not need to be administered.[12] So the guy failed a polygraph to access a highly controlled system full of confidential information, and the solution to that problem was to fire the people in charge of ensuring the system was secure. We're speed running America into the ground and half the country is willfully ignorant to it happening.
- TheSkyHasEyes 9mo agoNot defending the buy but completely might be inaccurate. He has a masters in comp sci eng. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhu_Gottumukkala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhu_Gottumukkala I do realize this scholastic achievement is not indication he knows what he is doing.
- pm90 9mo agoAnd an MBA. He seems like a lot of people I know who skim through their technical degrees just to get the credentials. And my experience is that Masters is often easier to get than a Bachelors. Anyway what he did makes it abundantly clear that this person should not be head of security for anything.
- duxup 9mo agoIt's so often the guys that are at the top who are the exception to the rules that are the problem. I knew some folks who worked military communications and they broke rules regularly because senior officers just didn't want to walk across the street to do something secure...
- KellyCriterion 9mo agoI had a C-level guy who installed on his fresh notebook a FireFox extension from the wrong domain, it contained mailware - he missed the official link in Google and clicked on whatever scammer site to download the extension :-X
- edoceo 9mo agoHave worked in places where juniors had to lock devices when on prem; only authorized hardware in the rooms. Yet, the danger was from sloppy O6+ not the O1/GS6 who would (ready&abel) carry the water. The is a serious problem with folk with power and authority and somehow no responsibility. That's across government, service and corporate.
- TeMPOraL 9mo ago> The is a serious problem with folk with power and authority and somehow no responsibility. Or perhaps the fundamental problem is with people in general - perhaps people without power and authority follow rules only because they don't have the power and authority to ignore them.
- lazide 9mo agoI think this is the real winner here. Power corrupts because power means you can be corrupt.
- burnt-resistor 9mo agoIn the 00's, DIA had episodes of career researchers watching porn from secured and monitored systems and then losing their jobs and clearances. One can only conclude they wanted to be fired or were really, really stupid.
- natas 9mo agoI can't say I'm shocked.
- exabrial 9mo agoBetter go have him sit in front of a powerpoint for a few hours. That'll help him.
- bpodgursky 9mo ago> None of the files Gottumukkala plugged into ChatGPT were classified, according to the four officials, each of whom was granted anonymity for fear of retribution. But the material included CISA contracting documents marked “for official use only,” a government designation for information that is considered sensitive and not for public release. Guys... we're talking about FOUO. Not even low-level classified. This is a nothingburger. The toilet paper you wipe with is FOUO, there is essentially no document in the government that isn't at least FOUO.
- Woodi 9mo agoYay, on-premise llms are what is recomended for serious use, at least US gov thinks that :) But rest of us need to pay subscriptions for 3r party businesses passing back and forth our... everything ? In old days ppl was saying: "I have no secrets" and now we evolved into "I know how to not upload important docs" ;)