21 Million Social Security Numbers Stolen in Second OPM Data Breach
- By Ginger Hill
- Jul 10, 2015
Linking the intrusion to China, the Office of Personnel Management has suffered yet another breach that has compromised more than 21 million Social Security numbers from a database of sensitive information about federal employees. This is a separate hack from the OPM data breach that compromised 4.2 million Social Security numbers in June 2015.
Of the records that were stolen, 19.7 million were of individuals who had gone through background investigations with the remaining 1.8 million belonging mostly to the families of applicants. Compromised information included details about:
- Names;
- Addresses;
- Dates of birth;
- Employment history;
- Past drug abuse and emotional disorders,;
- Residency and educational history;
- Immediate family and other personal business acquaintances; and
- Fingerprints from 1.1 million compromised files.
Credit monitoring and identity-theft protection will be offered to those affected by the breach while Katherine Archuleta, director of the OPM, submitted her resignation to President Obama this morning, effective at the close of business day.
About the Author
Ginger Hill is Group Social Media Manager.