The Office of Personnel Management Breach essay
Programming
Agency facts: The Office of Personnel Management provides human resources support to agencies of the United States federal government.
Leadership: Beth F. Cobert was appointed acting director of OPM in 2015.
Mission/vision: “We’re responsible for keeping the government running smoothly.”
The breach: Cybersecurity breaches in 2015 affected the data of millions of federal government employees, contractors, and some who may have only applied for a background investigation with the government. In April 2015, OPM reported that 4.2 million current and former employees’ information was compromised. Another breach, discovered in June 2005, involved 21.5 million people. In addition, 5.6 million records of fingerprints were exposed. Names, birth dates, addresses, and Social Security numbers were affected. As of early 2016, it was still unclear who was behind the breach. Notifications to those affected began September 30, 2015, and were expected to last 12 weeks.
Sources:
OPM.gov. (2016). Our people and organization. Retrieved from https://www.opm.gov/about-us/our-people-organizati…
OPM.gov. (2016). Our mission, role, and history. Retrieved from https://www.opm.gov/about-us/our-mission-role-hist… https://www.opm.gov/about-us/budget-performance/st…
OPM.gov. (2016). What happened. Cybersecurity Resource Center. Retrieved from https://www.opm.gov/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-in…
Peterson, A. (2015, September 23). OPM says 5.6 million fingerprints stolen in cyberattack, five times as many as previously thought. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/…
Singletary, M. (2015, December 11). What to do if you are affected by the OPM data breach. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/get-there/…
