Montana Department of Justice. Attorney General Tim Fox’s 5 Million Dollar IT Consultants With Ties To Iranian Money Laundering and E-mail Hacks

The mission of the Department of Justice is protecting and promoting public safety and the rule of law. DOJ has nearly 800 people in eight divisions. According to Governor Steve Bullock’s Executive Budget, fiscal years 2018-2019, IT is critical to every aspect of the Department of Justice mission. The IT mission is to deliver, maintain, and protect IT solutions, collaboratively with customers, which are cost-effective, timely, innovative, integrated, and secure and meet or exceed customer needs. The majority of DOJ IT systems contain very sensitive information, support continuous law enforcement operations, and interface with the FBI, and therefore they have very stringent security and uptime requirements.

In fiscal years 2016 through 2018, The Department of Justice, under Attorney General Tim Fox, spent $5,000,000.00 for Information Technology Consulting.  25% of this $5,000,000.00 was paid to a consulting firm  Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited commonly referred to as Deloitte.  Deloitte has quite a checkered reputation.  Let's take a look at how Deloitte protects and promotes public safety and the rule of law, as declared to be the mission of the Montana Department of Justice

Deloitte operates across the world in more than 100 locations including Hong Kong, China and India. In the late 1990’s, Deloitte commenced operations in India. In India, ICAI regulations do not permit foreign firms to carry out audits in India. Hence Deloitte carries out audits in India under the name of C.C.Chokshi & Co., an existing auditing firm that it arranged an agreement with. After India was forced to liberalise under one of the conditions of the world bank and IMF sponsored bail out, Deloitte was granted a license to operate in India. It subsequently purchased C.C.Chokshi & Co and now conducts audits in India under the name of this firm.

In August 2012, Deloitte, as the official internal auditors for Standard Chartered, helped the bank cover up money laundering operations related to Iran which were earning the bank significant profits by “intentionally omitting critical information”. Deloitte paid the state of New York a $10 million settlement, was required not to take on new business for one year from designated New York banks, and was required to implement reforms in order to prevent similar problems in the future. 

In September 2017, Deloitte suffered a cyber attack that breached the confidentiality of its clients and 244,000 staff, allowing the attackers to access “usernames, passwords, IP addresses, architectural diagrams for businesses and health information”. Reportedly, Deloitte had stored the affected data in Microsoft’s Azure cloud hosting service, without two-step verification. The attackers were thought to possibly have had access from as early as October 2016. The breach affected all of Deloitte’s email and administrative user accounts. As of October 2017, the New York attorney general’s office was investigating the hack. The New York Attorney General is investigating the hack, not the Montana Attorney General, a probable victim of the attack.

The mission of the Montana Department of Justice is to protect and promote public safety and the rule of law. Deloitte, an Information Technology Consulting firm, has ties to a bank that laundered money to Iran, paid a $10 million dollar settlement and was restrained from doing business in New York. This while being paid $1,272,000.00 from the Montana Department of Justice.

The mission of the Montana Department of Justice is to protect and promote public safety and the rule of law. This is their mission while paying over 1 million dollars to Deloitte after Deloitte was hacked because they negligently stored sensitive information using a cloud hosting service. Information Technology is critical to every aspect of the Department of Justice mission. The New York Attorney General investigates, not the Montana Attorney General who was a probable victim of the attack. The Montana Department of Justice has information on almost every Montanan, whether it be a driver’s license, vehicle plates, fingerprints for background checks, driver-history records, vehicle titling and criminal justice records. All this information was comprised by the IT firm hired by Attorney General Tim Fox. Did you know? The breach affected all of Deloitte’s email and administrative user accounts.

The Montana Department of Justice, under the leadership of Attorney General Tim Fox, is making a mockery of justice. Iranian money laundering, fraudulent companies in India, Information Technology standards that don’t conform to industry standards. The probable release of sensitive information of almost every adult in Montana. Did you know? Now you do. Your tax money is paying for this mockery of justice.