FBI tip line and veterans crisis site among 350 federal web addresses exposing visitors to network spies, senator warns
350 federal web addresses, including the FBI tip line and a veterans crisis service, let network snoops see who visits.
Senator Ron Wyden has warned that federal websites, including the FBI tip portal and the Department of Veterans Affairs' crisis line, are vulnerable to network spying due to a lack of encryption on their domain names. In a letter to the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the deputy federal chief information officer, Wyden urged CISA and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to require Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) on all federal websites, and to make ECH support a condition for federal contracts with cloud and network vendors.
The letter lists 350 addresses hosted on content delivery networks (CDNs) that do not currently use ECH, including diplomatic sites, VA services, FBI tips portal, and various government portals. ECH encrypts the server name indication, which would prevent observers from identifying the specific site being accessed. However, ECH does not protect against other vulnerabilities, such as DNS leaks or IP address exposure.
Additionally, some embassies and international sites may be inaccessible if ECH is enabled due to geographic restrictions.
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