Hackers may have accessed records of 4 million federal workers; was China responsible?
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A December hack attack that may have originated in China compromised the personal data of up to 4 million current and former federal employees in one of the largest thefts of government data ever reported.
Federal officials confirmed the security breach, which was discovered in April, and said the FBI is investigating but provided few details on the record and declined to say who is thought be behind the cybercrime.
It is unknown whether data for intelligence agency employees was stolen by the hackers, the Associated Press reports.
Stolen information could potentially be used to impersonate or blackmail government employees, said chief strategy officer Ken Ammon of government security contractor Xceedium. “This is an attack against the nation,” he told the AP.
Rep. Adam Schiff is the ranking Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee. He said the cyberattack is shocking, because citizens expect the federal government to have excellent security on its computer networks.
However, Ammon said an effort by the U.S. government to implement a two-factor authentication program is nowhere near complete.
Bloomberg, Reuters, the Washington Post (reg. req.) and the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) also have stories, which rely on unidentified sources for some of the specific details.
Sources told news media that the Office of Personnel Management was the target of the attack.
“Certainly, OPM is a high-value target,” the federal agency’s chief information officer, Donna Seymour, told the Post. “We have a lot of information about people, and that is something that our adversaries want.”
U.S. officials, including Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, aired speculations that the attacks were made at the instigation of the Chinese government. The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal stories have more on why China was suspected.
However, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told NBC News that people were rushing to judgement without proof.
“Without the thorough investigation, you jump to a conclusion so quickly. We think it is not scientific and is irresponsible,” Lei said. “We hope the United States side could discard this kind of suspicion and stop groundless accusations. We would like to see more trust and cooperation from the U.S.”
