Settlement in 2015 OPM data breach

Federal Newscast

A federal court in October 2022 finalized a $63 million settlement for those impacted by the breach.

Michele Sandiford

January 6, 2025 5:40 pm

< a min read

The federal government is only paying out a small fraction of the settlement funds it set aside for victims of the 2015 Office of Personnel Management data breach. A federal court in October 2022 finalized a $63 million settlement for those impacted by the breach. But a recent court filing shows the federal government paid about $4.7 million to more than 5,000 individuals who could demonstrate harm from the data breach. The OPM breach impacted about 22 million current and former federal employees.
(OPM breach settlement pays out only $4.7M so far - Courtlistener)

Federal offices in the DC metro area closed on Monday with maximum telework put into effect. With the storm that hit the region, the Office of Personnel Management made the call early on Sunday evening to move to maximum telework. OPM said telework and remote employees were expected to work and non-telework employees would be granted weather and safety leave. Emergency employees reported to their offices. WTOP said five to seven inches of snow was expected in the DC region.
(Snow storm puts federal offices in DC under maximum telework - Federal News Network)

Civilian federal employees got a 2% average pay raise for 2025. Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, said he was “disappointed” with President Biden finalizing a 2% pay raise last month. Kaine had previously joined forces with several other Democrats in Congress to urge Biden to give civilian feds a 4.5% raise. The larger percentage would have aligned with the raise military members are receiving for 2025. The Office of Management and Budget, however, said the decision for a 2% civilian raise recognizes federal employees’ hard work while still accounting for budget constraints.
(Statement on 2% pay raise finalization - Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.))

President Joe Biden signed the Social Security Fairness Act into law yesterday, completing the final step needed for nearly 3 million public sector employees, retirees, spouses and surviving spouses to begin receiving larger monthly Social Security payments. The legislation repeals the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset or WEP/GPO. These are two longstanding provisions of Social Security that reduce or eliminate benefits for certain government retirees, including Civil Service Retirement System annuitants, as well as teachers, firefighters, police officers and others who have worked in a public sector position. The Social Security Administration is expected to soon publish more details about the law’s implementation on its website. The payments to impacted individuals are expected to be backdated to January 2024.
(Biden signs Social Security Fairness Act into law - Federal News Network)

The American Federation of Government Employees is taking steps to address what it says is a mental health crisis among correctional officers at federal prisons. AFGE is partnering with a nonprofit organization to raise money for suicide prevention initiatives. The partnership also aims to support mental health awareness among federal correctional officers. AFGE’s new initiative honors the memory of federal correctional officer Blake Schwarz, a union member who died by suicide in 2023.
(AFGE local partners with The Gray Matters Collective in memory of federal correctional officer and AFGE member who died by suicide - American Federation of Government Employees)

More agencies are adopting continuous vetting. Twenty-three agencies have moved their non-sensitive public trust roles to the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency's continuous vetting system. That’s a total of 26,540 enrollments since DCSA began moving those roles over in early August. Continuous vetting is a system of automated record checks that replaces periodic reinvestigations. Most national security roles are already covered by the new system. The goal is to complete migration for non-sensitive public trust roles by the end of fiscal 2025.
(Agency continues to onboard NSPT population into CV - Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency)

Every Thrift Savings Plan fund in December posted negative returns except for the G fund. But each of them still managed to finish 2024 with yearly returns in the black. The C fund had the highest total yearly return, at 24.96%. The S fund came in second with 16.93%. The ever-dependable G fund posted a 0.36 percent return, and finished out 2024 with a yearly return of 4.40%.
(Despite December TSP downturn, C, S funds finish 2024 strong - Federal News Network)

Booz Allen Hamilton will pay almost $16 million to settle allegations that is violated the False Claims Act in connection with a Defense Department contract. The Justice Department alleges that Booz Allen's engineering services subsidiary submitted fraudulent claims to win task orders from GSA. Justice said a former Air Force contracting officer improperly and illegally divulged confidential government contracting and budget information, a competitor’s confidential bid or proposal information and source selection information to Booz Allen executives. Then Booz Allen employees used the illicit information, despite knowing they were not authorized to possess it, to successfully influence GSA to award the task order to them.
(Booz Allen to pay $15.9M to settle False Claims Act allegations - Justice Department)

The White House is prepping a new cyber executive order and some federal officials aren't too excited about it. The Biden administration is expected to release its second cybersecurity executive order later this week and some agency officials are questioning the decision. Multiple federal sources tell Federal News Network that issuing an EO so late in the administration seems like a waste of effort. The officials said it's especially concerning given the turnover of cyber leaders across the government who typically would champion such an effort. The draft EO includes a requirement for OMB to rewrite Circular A-130. It also includes new software attestation requirements as well as making CISA's persistent access capabilities program mandatory.
(White House prepping new cyber EO - Federal News Network)

The Export-Import Bank of the United States is investigating whether a shared network drive led to a breach of confidential data. During an audit, the inspector general for the EX-IM Bank found the credit agency had left a shared drive open to anyone with access to its IT systems. The drive included employee performance evaluations, reimbursement forms and other documents with sensitive or restricted data. The EX-IM Bank locked access to the drive after receiving the IG’s management alert. The agency is still determining whether any files were inappropriately accessed.
(Management Alert: EXIM did not appropriately safeguard personally identifiable information - EXIM Inspector General)