Insider threats loom as Elon Musk's team gains swift government access

The big picture: Former government officials, security executives and surveillance experts say DOGE's structure and quick pace could exacerbate insider threats.

• Rapid firings and hirings across agencies may create uncertainty about who is authorized to access key systems.
• New DOGE employees — cleared through an expedited vetting process — may not fully understand the classification or sensitivity of the data they are handling.
• Some security professionals fear DOGE may be collecting vast amounts of government data, potentially creating new attack vectors for hackers or misusing information for political purposes.

Between the lines: The U.S. government has provided little transparency about which data sets DOGE is accessing, who has been granted access, and whether federal data security laws are being followed.

• Musk has dismissed concerns about data privacy, stating on X that neither he nor his team is interested in personal data.
• "I'm 1000% more trustworthy than untold numbers of deep state bureaucrats and fraudsters who may be misusing your [Social Security number] right now," Musk posted Monday.

Driving the news: Reports have called into question whether DOGE is prioritizing cybersecurity.

• Tom Krause, a tech executive and DOGE ally based in the Treasury Department, previously led cost-cutting and layoffs at Citrix — but those moves left the company more vulnerable to cyberattacks, former employees told Bloomberg.
• 19-year-old Edward Coristine, a DOGE employee, was fired from a cybersecurity internship for leaking company secrets and allegedly has ties to cybercriminal circles, according to media reports.
• Coristine is now listed as a senior adviser at the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Technology, which handles both sensitive and nonsensitive government data, per the Washington Post.

Between the lines: Insider risk increases during both mass layoffs and rapid hiring, said Marshall Heilman, CEO of insider risk firm Dtex Systems.

• Unlike with classified networks, the federal government does not have a mandated system for monitoring insider threats on unclassified systems, he added.
• "Many people who have access to [unclassified systems] also have access to the classified networks, and so a lot of the behaviors you might see in terms of who's intentionally going to cause harm, you're going to see on the unclassified side first," Heilman said.

Zoom in: Federal agencies typically follow zero-trust security protocols, which limit employee access to internal systems, a former U.S. cyber official told Axios.

• The official, who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation, said new employees typically undergo a background check going back 15 years to obtain the top-secret security clearance needed to access sensitive operations, like Treasury's payment system.
• Once inside certain government networks, DOGE employees may have access to data on U.S. national security priorities, including Ukraine and NATO funding, nuclear defense strategies, and other intelligence of value to foreign adversaries, the official said.

What they're saying: "I don't know how he will use a lot of that data, I don't know how he wants to use that data — all I know is that he is really breaking things faster than he knows how to make anything of use out of it," Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, told Axios.

What we're watching: The long-term impact of DOGE's reported security gaps remains unclear, but cybersecurity experts warn a breach is inevitable.

• "It's just a matter of time before there's a massive breach," the former official said. "Whatever the data is that's breached, it's going to be embarrassing, it's going to be more than newsworthy, it's going to be very damaging and nobody's ready for it."

Go deeper: Musk's "move fast, break things" ethos threatens U.S. security