The U.S. agency burglarized by suspected Chinese hackers has completed its long-awaited damage assessment and more than 22 million people inside and outside government likely had their personal information stolen, officials announced today.
That number is more than five times larger than what the Office of Personnel Management announced a month ago when first acknowledging a major breach had occurred. At the time, OPM only disclosed that the personnel records of 4.2 million current and former federal employees had been compromised.
The extent of the hacking was first reported earlier today by ABC News.
Investigators ultimately determined that 19.7 million applicants for security clearances had their Social Security numbers and other personal information stolen and 1.8 million relatives and other associates also had information taken, according to OPM. That includes 3.6 million of the current and former government employees for a total of 22.1 million.
that's bad. but the funny thing is the chinese who are doing this are actually run of the mill, they've said that companies and the government have really shitty security, that and the fact the US doesn't go near as far as it should with talks about cyber crime originating from china.
