Union: Hackers have personnel data on every federal employee

[mystery-ak]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GOVERNMENT_HACKED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-06-11-15-58-33


Jun 11, 3:58 PM EDT

Union: Hackers have personnel data on every federal employee

By KEN DILANIAN
AP Intelligence Writer

 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hackers stole personnel data and Social Security numbers for every federal employee, a government worker union said Thursday, charging that the cyberattack on U.S. employee data is far worse than the Obama administration has acknowledged.

Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, said on the Senate floor that the December hack into Office of Personnel Management data was carried out by "the Chinese." Reid is one of eight lawmakers who is briefed on the most secret intelligence information. U.S. officials have declined to publicly blame China, which has denied involvement.

J. David Cox, president of the American Federal of Government Employees, said in a letter to OPM director Katherine Archuleta that based on OPM's internal briefings, the hackers stole military records and veterans' status information, address, birth date, job and pay history, health insurance, life insurance, and pension information; age, gender, race data.

The letter was obtained by The Associated Press.

The union said it is basing its assessment on internal OPM briefings. The agency has sought to downplay the damage, saying that only limited personally identifying information was breached.

"We believe that Social Security numbers were not encrypted, a cybersecurity failure that is absolutely indefensible and outrageous," the letter said.

"Based on the sketchy information OPM has provided, we believe that the Central Personnel Data File was the targeted database, and that the hackers are now in possession of all personnel data for every federal employee, every federal retiree, and up to one million former federal employees."

[DCPatriot]

Harry Reid if full of shit.

The Democrats were the hackers.

If you don't cast a ballot....they'll vote for you.

Photo ID's need to be made mandatory ASAP...to vote.

[olde north church]

It's not just federal employees.  It's veterans too.  Well, not just veterans, anyone who had ever gone through basic training.

[NavyCanDo]

This I think is a lot more ugly than they are letting on. This is an act of war on China's part, but we will offer 2-years of free credit monitoring to the tens of millions affected and shrug it off as of if nothing has happened.

[alicewonders]

This I think is a lot more ugly than they are letting on. This is an act of war on China's part, but we will offer 2-years of free credit monitoring to the tens of millions affected and shrug it off as of if nothing has happened.

Seems like a lot of this stuff is happening lately.  Recently, someone tried to withdraw money from our bank accounts - we had to go through all that hassle of closing and changing accounts and all of our automatic payments and everywhere.  Terrible!  The entity that tried to do that was a Canadian labor union group. 

I found out by talking to a cashier at a grocery store I'd never shopped at before that the same thing had happened to him - he banked where we do and he told me his sister works there.  He said over a hundred of the bank's customers were hit.  Luckily, they denied the request, but it was still a major hassle to change everything. 

[DCPatriot]

This I think is a lot more ugly than they are letting on. This is an act of war on China's part, but we will offer 2-years of free credit monitoring to the tens of millions affected and shrug it off as of if nothing has happened.

Please explain why you believe that it was China behind this?

Just because 'Obama' says so?  Don't make me laugh.

For what purpose?

The Democrat Left has more to gain than China.  And it was a private company that discovered the hack that has been going on for a year.

The only "fact" is that the private information was hacked.

This stinks.