Don’t worry. I have it on good authority from a Nigerian prince and a friend who lost his wallet in Vladivostok that these guys were totally on the level:

U.S. intelligence agencies last week urged the Obama administration to check its new healthcare network for malicious software after learning that developers linked to the Belarus government helped produce the website, raising fresh concerns that private data posted by millions of Americans will be compromised.

The intelligence agencies notified the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency in charge of the Healthcare.gov network, about their concerns last week. Specifically, officials warned that programmers in Belarus, a former Soviet republic closely allied with Russia, were suspected of inserting malicious code that could be used for cyber attacks, according to U.S. officials familiar with the concerns.

The software links the millions of Americans who signed up for Obamacare to the federal government and more than 300 medical institutions and healthcare providers.

“The U.S. Affordable Care Act software was written in part in Belarus by software developers under state control, and that makes the software a potential target for cyber attacks,” one official said.

We’ve been hearing all along that the architecture of the Healthcare.gov website is particularly susceptible to hacker penetration. David Kennedy, a former Marine Corps cyberwarfare expert turned Internet security consultant, has warned since October that the system leaves critical identity information exposed. That got worse rather than better after the operational fixes made in November, and HHS doesn’t even have systems in place to detect such intrusions.

Small wonder why the Obama administration didn’t want to brief Congress on security issues in December.  These security gaps were presumed to be the product of incompetent programming and management. Until now, we didn’t realize that the subcontracts for programming went in part to a firm connected with a hostile regime.  Belarus has remained a satellite to Moscow with a dictator in charge ever since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Alexander Lukashenko, and the regime is decidedly unfriendly to the West. Currently, the US doesn’t even recognize the legitimacy of Lukashenko’s government after his rigged 2010 election.

How did this happen? Normally, we’d pay good money to keep hostile regimes from penetrating our government operations. In this case, it looks as though we paid them to do it. Great job, HHS!

But it’s not all bad. If you think your identity information has been hijacked, just call the ObamaCare hotline. Be sure to ask for Peggy.