Shane Harris reports: Five years ago, U.S. officials refused to merge a database containing classified personnel records of intelligence agency employees with another run by the Office of Personnel Management, fearing that if the two systems were linked up, it could expose the personal information of covert operatives to leakers and hackers. Those concerns look…
Category: U.S.
FL: Personal information stolen for hundreds of people
Kristen Sanchez reports: A local business had the personal information stolen for hundreds of people, including driver licenses, Social Security numbers and bank records. Kree Kirkman, owner of DK Real Estate MGMT says private information for nearly 400 people is now in the wrong hands. Last week, someone broke into his home office in Punta…
AFGE files Class Action Lawsuit against OPM Officials over Data Breach
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) has filed a class action complaint with a demand for jury trial against the Office of Personnel Management, Director Katherine Archuleta and Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour about one of the most devastating cyberattacks in U.S. history that resulted in potentially 18 million current and former federal employees’ personal and security files being compromised….
OPM Temporarily Shuts Down Personnel Information Database as Protective Step
AP reports: The federal personnel agency whose records were plundered by hackers linked to China announced on Monday the temporary shutdown of a massive database used to update and store background investigation records after newly discovering a flaw that left the system vulnerable to additional breaches. There is no evidence the vulnerability has been exploited…
VA: Twin computer prodigies plead guilty to schemes to hack State Dept., others
Justin Jouvenal has an update on a case previously reported on this site in May: Twin brothers from Springfield have pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria to a series of computer hacking schemes that involved stealing credit card information, breaking into State Department computers and obtaining data from a private company. Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter,…
FBI Cyber Division Bulletin on Tools Reportedly Used by OPM Hackers
Public Intelligence reports: The following bulletin was released to private industry partners June 5, 2015. According to an article from Reuters, one of the remote access tools (RAT) described in the bulletin, called Sakula, is directly linked to the hack of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that was disclosed earlier this month. Other publications have directly…