OSHA's Online Injury Tracker Hit By Cyber Attack

Cyber attacks are becoming increasingly more common, with organizations in all sectors being targeted. It's not just privately held companies that are being targeted, either. Even government organizations are feeling the effects of cyber attacks. Earlier this month, for instance, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) online injury reporting website was hit by a cyber attack.

As you may already know, OSHA launched its online injury tracking application on August 1 as part of its new record-keeping rule. The tracking application allows employers to report work-related injuries using OSHA's web portal. And with this information, OSHA can make the necessary changes to improve the safety for millions of hard-working Americans. However, the injury tracking application has already been shut down due to a suspected security breach. So, how did this breach occur?

A spokesperson for OSHA said that OSHA received an alert from the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team -- a branch of the Department of Homeland Security -- suggesting that user information stores in the injury tracking application had been compromised. The good news, however, is that only one company was affected by this breach. The bad news is that OSHA has temporarily shut down its online injury tracking application until the breach is fixed and the portal is secure.

“At this time, one company appears to have been affected and that company has been notified of the issue,” explained OSHA in a statement about the breach. “Access to the ITA has been temporarily suspended as OSHA works with the system developer to examine the issue to determine the extent of the problem.”

Of course, companies are currently required to submit injury reports via OSHA's injury tracking application -- not yet, at least. In May, OSHA said it was pushing back to the compliance date for such reports to December, meaning employers would have until December to begin reporting injuries through the injury tracking application. With this recent cyber breach, however, OSHA says it may reconsider or otherwise revise certain provisions of its controversial electronic record-keeping rule.

Nearly 3 million nonfatal workplace injuries occur in the United States every year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While some of these injuries are minor, others are more severe. In order to curb these numbers and protect workers from injury, OSHA needs complete and up-to-date data, which is the reason for it launching the injury tracking application. But while the injury tracking application is currently out of order, it's safe to assume that OSHA will have it back up and running in the near future.