Homeland Security Credit Cards Used to Buy Starbucks Coffee worth $30,000

Starbucks coffee may be delicious for many but delicious enough to waste thousands of dollars in taxpayer money? 

The Inspector generals office of the Department of Homeland security said in its audit report that someone either hacked or stole the department’s credit cards and used them to purchase coffee from Starbucks.

Researcher claims Starbucks mobile app got hacked, credit card data stolen

The audit report (pdf) released in July 2015 reports on the unauthorised use of department’s credit cards in 2013 and 2014. The story was originally reported in 2014 by News4 I-Team.

Brian D Miller, an auditor and former prosecutor said the audit report and News4 findings both are troubling.

“We shouldn’t tolerate it when people are running out and making personal purchases at Starbucks with a federal purchase card, that’s unacceptable.”

The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on how many of its credit cards have been hacked or stolen but confirmed the theft of card information in 2013 and 2014 and the purchases of Starbucks items with those card numbers, reports NBC Washington.

This is not the first time the department of Homeland Security has been in the news for data theft. In the past, records of 25,000 Homeland Security staff were hacked in a cyber-attack. In another cyber attack, personal data of 390,000 people tied to Homeland Security was exposed by  hackers.

Who hacked these credit cards if the cards were indeed hacked? Was it an inside job? Once we get the answers to these questions we will update you.

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