China's hack gave access to important information on NEARLY EVERY FEDERAL EMPLOYEE

Federal union outraged over security breach

An official with a federal union has revealed that the recent hack of American government information, likely by China, is much more dire than previously believed.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The hackers took the personal data and Social Security information for every single federal employee, including military records, veteran information, birth dates, job histories, addresses, health and life insurance and pension information, as well as data on the age, gender and race of those within the OPM data file.

The president of the American Federation of Government Employees, David Cox, revealed in a letter Thursday to the director of the OPM, that he believed "that the Central Personnel Data File was the targeted database, and that the hackers are now in possession of all personal data for every federal employee, every federal retiree, and up to one million former federal employees."

The OPM data holds the records of most federally employed civilians, but does not have the information of Congress members or theirs staff.

Following an intelligence briefing, Nevada Senator Harry Reid claims that the hack was done by China, though he did not specify if it was the Chinese government or private hackers who were responsible. Despite his claims U.S. officials have been hesitant to publicly accuse China of the hack.

The federal union says that OPM's handling of the situation is appalling.

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

The union went on to say that the hack was "an abysmal failure on the part of the agency to guard data that has been entrusted to it by the federal workforce."

A spokesman for OPM, Samuel Schumach, did address Cox's letter.

"Though data encryption is a valuable protection method, today's adversaries are sophisticated enough that encryption alone does not guarantee protection," he said. "OPM does utilize encryption in some instances and is currently increasing the types of methods utilized to encrypt data."

---

'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'

Copyright 2021 - Distributed by Catholic Online