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or are being addressed through specific actions. No successful cyberattacks have taken place, officials say.
• However, the issues detailed in documents and emails provided by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee reveal broader concerns than the federal Health and Human Services department has previously acknowledged.
• They show a frenzied behind-the-scenes juggling act by officials and contractors as the Oct. 1 deadline for new health insurance exchanges loomed. Instead of providing a showcase for President Barack Obama, the launch of his health care law became a case study in how big technology projects can go off the rails.
• In order to connect to federal computers, state and other outside systems must undergo a security review and receive an "authority to connect."
• With the health care law, states needed approval to connect to a new federal data hub, an electronic back room that pings Social Security, the Internal Revenue Service, Homeland Security to verify personal details about people applying for government-subsidized insurance. The hub handles sensitive information, including income, immigration status and Social Security numbers.
• The documents showed a high-stakes decision-making process playing out against a backdrop of tension and uncertainty as the clock ran out. For example:
• -- In one email from Sept. 29, a Sunday two days before the launch, Teresa Fryer, chief information security officer for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, wrote of the state security approvals, "The front office is signing them whether or not they are a high risk." Her agency, known as CMS, also administers the health care law.
• Two days earlier, in a separate document, CMS administrator Marilyn Tavenner approved nine states to connect although the approval document noted that "CMS views the October 1 connections to the nine states as a risk due to the fact that their documentation may not be submitted completely nor reviewed...by Oct. 1." Approval was contingent on states submitting proper documentation. The states were Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.
• -- A CMS PowerPoint presentation from Sept. 23 revealed huge differences in states' readiness. Some were already approved; others had security weaknesses that were well understood and being tackled. But there were also states where the federal government had little information on security preparations.
• "CMS views these connections to states as a high risk due to the unknown nature of their systems," according to the presentation.
• CMS officials contemplated whether their agency would have to accept risk on

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