The Office of Personnel Management reported a major cyberattack from December earlier this month; today, a government worker union official said that the attack was much worse than originally stated. It turns out that hackers might have the social security number of every single federal employee. Hackers might also have “military records and veterans’ status information, address, birth date, job and pay history, health insurance, life insurance, and pension information” at their disposal. The union, based on the tone of a letter obtained by the Associated Press today, is unsurprisingly not happy. “Based on the sketchy information OPM has provided, we believe … 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.”
The U.S. hasn’t officially blamed anyone yet, but federal officials have been pointing fingers at China. Federal computer files have been hacked extensively at least three times in the past year.
