Intel chairman: Shut down HealthCare.gov to fix security issues

HealthCare.gov should be shut down because it’s still putting consumers’ personal information at risk, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Thursday.

“What I would do is shut it down, get it functioning, and then bring in these independent security folks so that you’re not putting at risk millions of millions of Americans’ private and personal information,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

In his position as chairman, Rogers has been monitoring the security issues posed by ObamaCare’s federal portal since it launched. In late October, he warned that the site’s developers never had an “overarching solid cybersecurity plan.”

{mosads}The congressman also serves as a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has held numerous hearings about the website’s messy implementation.

HealthCare.gov has about 5 million lines of code, Rogers said Thursday. He added a website of this size, however, would have roughly 500,000 lines of code.

“You’ve opened them up to a level of risk using this website that I’ve never seen,” Rogers said. “We know of a very low-level access problem, meaning that somebody could use the site today, as we know it to get information off of your own personal computer.”

The Obama administration shouldn’t look at the problems itself, Rogers advised. Instead, he suggests they should bring in independent groups that specialize in cybersecurity issues and fix the current vulnerabilities.