If it’s really true that misery loves company, current and former members of the federal family must be jumping with joy.

Not really!

Many are understandably quaking in their credit cards.

About 4 million people have been hacked. Their vital personnel information — names, date of birth and Social Security numbers — was stolen sometime in December. The government detected the “intrusion” in April but didn’t learn the extent of the breach until about a month later.

The Chinese government said it is deeply hurt that anyone would suspect it was somehow involved.

OPM announced the hack attack earlier this month. It’s promised to contact (by e-mail or regular mail) people whose PII (personally identifiable information) may be in the hands of the hackers. Meantime, the government is offering credit report access, credit monitoring and identify theft insurance data thieves who got into the Office of Personnel Management’s files in December. It was initially reported that the PII data hack impacted 3 million current and former federal employees and about 1 million retirees. But last week the American Federation of Government Employees said that based on “sketchy information” provided by OPM, it believed many more feds’ PII could’ve been hacked. Either way, lots of people are sweating it out!

For most current and former feds, the next question is what next? What happens when the other shoe drops?

In a column last week, a proactive fed in Washington State urged her colleagues to consider a credit freeze. The column included information from the Federal Trade Commission about how a credit/security freeze works.

Some agencies are having town hall meetings to bring employees up to speed. The Internal Revenue Service and others started those sessions last week in many locations.

Shirley Rooker, president of CallForAction, said a lot feds — and anyone else — can to protect and monitor their credit before and after it has been compromised.

Rooker said a credit freeze is one option, but there are others that are better. Like passwords on all your accounts and credit cards.

“Our experience is that consumers should put a password on everything … checking, savings accounts, etc. A credit freeze does not free you from checking yourself. If you see a suspicious charge, pursue it.” She also said pin numbers for credit cards, plus the new chipcards companies are issuing cannot be cloned or reproduced. And if you currently have passwords on anything, change them! Especially, if you are in the fed hack group.

Once there has been a data hack, Rooker said the information “is generally used within a short time.”

The bad, but probably realistic news, Rooker sadi, is that “this is just the beginning” of a cyber war that could last a long, long time. The sooner people realize and adjust to it, the better. CallForAction has offices in major cities, For more information, including where to get local help, click here

Rooker also hosts a weekly show Sundays at 10:30 a.m. here on Federal News Radio.

Read all of Federal News Radio’s coverage of the OPM Cyber Breach.

NEARLY USELESS FACTOID

By Michael O’Connell

Queen Victoria’s wedding cake weighed 300 pounds.

Source: The Knot

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