Trump Advisor: 'Enormous' Amount of Money Being Ripped Off In Social Security By Hackers

When electronic government systems anonymously handle money and identities, it seems fraud is bound to follow.

That's the warning from retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, now a national security advisor to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Flynn said that ’enormous amounts of money [are] being ripped off in social security’ by malicious hackers.

Flynn spoke at Black Duck’s Flight16 conference in Boston, where he spoke to CRNtv about the growing issue of electronic identity theft when it comes to collecting social security and tax refunds.

id
unit-1659132512259
type
Sponsored post

Before his retirement from the Army, Flynn served as the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and Assistant Director of National Intelligence. He's a registered Democrat, but spoke in support of Trump at the Republican National Convention in August and is now a top national security advisor to Trump’s campaign.

Flynn said when hackers collect information like social security numbers in large-scale breaches, they often turn around and file fraudulent government forms to agencies.

’When the actual, legitimate person goes to apply, what happens is, the Society Security Administration says, ’We’ve been paying you benefits for four or five years now,’’ he explained.

’What we’re finding is that social security benefits are being paid out for years in some cases to criminal organizations,’ he added.

He calls the issue ’not unsolvable,’ but said that the government has an issue with accountability.

Flynn would like to see more government workers empowered to take action, and simply called the government ’too slow’ in its response to cyber attacks.

Said Flynn: ’The cyber threat didn’t just pop up in the last couple of years, the cyber threat has existed for decades.’