Last week the federal government admitted a data breach of four million federal employees from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Today, it is being reported by various media outlets that this incident may not be limited to that number, nor to only federal employees.
Reports from ABC News are stating that there is a possibility the hackers also accessed data relating to background checks for some that are not employees, but who may have had information about them investigated for various reasons. Included in this information may be information about the person’s family, including their addresses and social security numbers. If this is the case, the number of affected persons will climb exponentially.
At this time, the government is not providing any confirmation or denial about what was accessed, so anything that being tossed around in the media is speculation or based on information provided by those not willing to be quoted or identified. So don’t panic. Investigations on this case are ongoing. Just remain diligent about monitoring credit information and report anything suspicious to the credit bureau immediately. This should be normal protocol; not reserved for this particular breach.
Credit reports can be obtained from the three major credit bureaus once a year. The site annualcreditreport.com is the government backed site. Although there are always attempts to sell other products, it is not necessary to purchase them to get the free reports.
Over the next couple of weeks, the OPM will be sending out notifications to anyone that they suspect may have been affected by this breach. It is hoped that those notifications will provide more details on what happened. However, Josh Earnest, the press secretary for President Obama has indicated that even if the culprit(s) is identified, it is not guaranteed that the information will not be publicized.
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