Posted on 06/12/2015 12:57:15 PM PDT by mojito
The massive hack into federal systems announced last week was far deeper and potentially more problematic than publicly acknowledged, with hackers believed to be from China moving through government databases undetected for more than a year, sources briefed on the matter told ABC News.
"If [only] they knew the full extent of it," one U.S. official said about those affected by the intrusion into the Office of Personnel Management's information systems.
It all started with an initial intrusion into OPM's systems more than a year ago, and after gaining that initial access the hackers were able to work their way through four different "segments" of OPM's systems, according to sources.
Much of that data has been stored on OPM systems housed by the Department of the Interior in a Denver-area data center, sources said. And one of the four "segments" compromised held forms filled out by federal employees seeking security clearances.
As ABC News previously reported, the 127-page forms — known as SF-86's and used for background investigations — ask applicants for personal information not only about themselves but also relatives, friends, and potentially even college roommates.
OPM insists the information compromised by the intrusion into its systems does "not [include] the names of family members."
"Family members of employees were not affected by this breach," OPM says on its website.
However, U.S. officials speaking on the condition of anonymity say unequivocally such information was put at serious risk by the OPM hack.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Oh, how does it feel?
Calling this “a hack” instead of calling it “espionage” serves the same purpose as does calling racially-motivated beat-downs “the knock-out game” instead “first-degree assault.”
Good comment!
They would rather play imaginary games with imaginary words in their imaginary world.
Which is one reason the Chinese were able to hand them their keesters on a silver platter.
Incompetent bureaucrats don’t help. I’d fire all the IT people across the board and start over.
While it is a serious breech of security I too find shadenfreud enjoying that the federal workforce gets to enjoy the same thing they have on us.
Does everyone feel safe now that our medical records ARE REQUIRED BY LAW to be kept electronically for federal agents to pour through???
Might be an excuse to change all rules and waiver in a whole new class of H1Bs.
Please tell me that's not true. Let me guess: 0bamacare?
If so, it's another blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment, and a heinous one...
Look, hackers are going to hack their way in -- what difference does it make The question is, how much would they pay to save themselves the time? Taking the money always worked for Bill when he had secrets rich foreigners wanted, and we still left the White House flat broke. Who knows where it goes?
Now the news is saying it is 3X more people, and includes VERY private info from military & security clearance forms... http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=357301
Do you have any idea about the enormity of such a breach?
The SF86 is used by all military, civilians and contractors who have a security clearance...
The ramifications of this are enormous...
Schadenfreud be damned, the people impacted by this breach did not enact the medical records law you speak of...the turds who did have not been affected as far as has been told.
And no, I don’t feel safe about the fact that my medical records have now been made available to whomever has a “need to know”.
But hey, if you didn’t do anything wrong, what do you have to hide? /s
I believe that I have been impacted by both of these events and it is very troubling...yours and comments like yours are extremely callous in their nature...FR is becoming more like twitter everyday.
Bargaining Away Your Security
How a federal union made it harder to protect employee files.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/bargaining-away-your-security-1433892038
In early 2011 the Immigration & Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) noticed a significant uptick in “mail infections and privacy spills” in its networks. It determined that the spike was due to ICE employees accessing their personal webmail accounts from office computers...
...Enter the American Federation of Government Employees, which promptly filed a grievance with a federal arbitrator, claiming that any change in access to private email must first be collectively bargained with the union...
Actually, it was the stimulus bill. Yep, that far back.
Active Duty ping.
DoD has figured out how to prevent Denial of Service attacks.
If you don’t have any service, nobody can deny it to you.
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