GAO to probe FCC cyberattack that struck amid net neutrality debate

The government's top watchdog has agreed to investigate the reported cyberattack that targeted the Federal Communications Commission earlier in 2017 while the agency was preparing to roll back net neutrality regulations. A spokesman for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) confirmed it has accepted a request from two Democratic lawmakers to probe the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that the FCC said disrupted its electronic comment filing system in May. The spokesman said that the probe, which was first reported by Politico, is “now in the queue, but the work won’t get underway for several months.” The investigation will also examine the FCC’s broader cybersecurity efforts.