Data breach puts DHS employees at risk of identity theft

Jason Miller reports:

Tens of thousands of current and former Homeland Security Department employees are at risk of identity theft after officials discovered a vulnerability in the vendor’s system for processing background investigations.

All DHS employees working in the headquarters office, for the Customs and Border Protection and for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement components from 2009 to 2013 are the most affected, according to an internal notice sent to employees, which was obtained by Federal News Radio and confirmed by a DHS spokeswoman.

“As a result of this vulnerability, information including name, Social Security numbers (SSN) and date of birth (DOB), stored in the vendor’s database of background investigations was potentially accessible by an unauthorized user since July 2009,” the internal notice stated.