Hack of Opexus Was at Root of Massive Federal Data Breach

A software company that handles sensitive data for nearly every US federal agency was the victim of a cyber breach earlier this year due to a “major lapse” in security measures, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News.

Opexus, which is owned by the private equity firm Thoma Bravo and provides software services for processing US government records, was compromised in February by two employees who’d previously been convicted of hacking into the US State Department. The findings were detailed in separate reports by Opexus and an independent cybersecurity firm, which characterized the incident as an “insider threat attack.”

The investigations found that the employees, twin brothers Muneeb and Suhaib Akhter, improperly accessed sensitive documents and compromised or deleted dozens of databases, including those that contained data from the Internal Revenue Service and the General Services Administration. The brothers have since been terminated.