Hackers have attempted more than a dozen cyber attacks against the Obamacare website , according to a top Homeland Security Department official . The attacks , which are under investigation , failed , said the official . Authorities also are investigating a separate report of a tool designed to put heavy strain on HealthCare.gov through a so-called distributed denial of service . It does not appear to have been activated . `` We received about 16 reports from HHS that are under investigation and one open source report about a denial of service , '' according to Acting Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Roberta Stempfley of the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications . Related : Many in Congress avoiding health care exchanges . Stempfley testified at a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee that the attempts were made between November 6 and November 8 , but none were successful . The DDOS program , called `` Destroy Obama Care , '' was recently spotted on a `` torrent '' file sharing web page , and first reported last week on a blog by Arbor Networks , which said it found no evidence the program had actually been launched to attack the troubled federal portal for consumers to shop for health coverage . `` We have not monitored any attacks . We have not seen any sizable , or anything to believe that these problems are related to DDOS , '' said Dan Holden director of security research for Arbor Networks , adding `` I do n't believe that the problems with the site 's availability is due to any kind of DDOS attack . '' Related : White House officials get earful from Democrats on Obamacare . In a separate hearing , a top Health and Human Services official , Chief Information Officer Frank Baitman , said his department had engaged an `` ethical hacker '' on staff to test the defenses of the health care site . The hacker discovered between seven and 10 items related to attempted security breaches which were disclosed in a report . Baitman said he would not describe these items as serious and said the majority had been resolved . The use of hackers employed to test on line site security is common , Holden said . `` That 's pretty standard practice , generally referred to as penetration testing , '' Holden told CNN . `` There are many companies and individuals out there that have done that for a very long time . The idea being , you want to know where your weaknesses are and what the potential of attacks could be . '' Related : Obamacare 's first month : 106,000 signed up . But others are still concerned about the security of the site . In statements made before the House Homeland Security hearing , database expert Luke Chung -- whose company did not work on HealthCare.gov -- provided his technical assessment , saying that the problem with the roll out of the website was far deeper than `` too many users . '' Chung said that in his estimation the skill set of the designers of the website were subpar , adding that `` when you have an environment where the developer can barely get the web site functional , security is way down on the list of things to take care of . Security has to be built-in at the very beginning not at the very end . '' But , critical infrastructure protection specialist and CEO of Lunarline , Inc. , Waylon Krush told the committee , `` There 's not a system out there that 's perfect in nature , by any means , from a cybersecurity perspective . '' `` You would assume that for hundreds of millions of dollars it would be a secure site , '' said Chung .
There have been more than a dozen attempts to attack the government web site . None of the attacks have been successful , officials said . Officials also hired an ` ` ethical consultant '' to try to find flaws in the system . HealthCare.gov went live on July 1 ; plagued by internal problems since .