The Largest Government Hack Ever Is Way Bigger Than We Thought

The Largest Government Hack Ever Is Way Bigger Than We Thought

When the Office of Personnel Management began investigating a data breach, it was already a dire situation, with 4.2 million US federal workers’ information stolen. Then things got worse. And worse.

During the investigation of the hack, the OPM found a second theft, the existence of which was first reported back in June. But today, we learned that this second data theft hijacked personal information from between 21 million and 25 million federal workers. That’s larger than the population of New York State!

OPM Director Katherine Archuleta already testified to the breach’s breadth today in a Congressional hearing, and Congressional sources told the National Journal that OPM will publicly acknowledge the scope of the theft later today.

At a Congressional hearing yesterday, FBI Director James Comey called the breach “enormous.” He didn’t name specific numbers, but admitted that his information was compromised.

We’ll update our post as we learn more — and considering that this breach just keeps getting bigger and bigger, there might be quite a few updates to come.

[National Journal]


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