‘Good’ news about the OPM breach

So what, if any, is the good news coming out of the Great Hack Job of 2015. Can there be any? The short answer is, yes, some, a little. But first this:

At this point in time, we still don’t know what we don’t know. What we know, or think we know, is:

• The breach took place late last year. It wasn’t discovered until April.
• The hack attack was made public June 6.
• It covers an estimated 14 million people. That is up from the original estimate of 4 million hackees. That includes current federal civilian personnel, some former civil servants and an undetermined number of retirees. Plus who knows who else?
• Two kinds of information were stolen. Personal identification such as full name, birth date, Social Security number, address. The sort of thing identity thieves love. And need. The other information came from background checks for security clearances. That kind of very personal, sometimes embarrassing information — medical problems, affairs, sexual information, financial problems — is the stuff spy recruiters and blackmailers love to own. It tells them (the security services of China??) the name and location of everyone who has a security clearance.

The Washington establishment has gone into high dudgeon mode. They (we) want to know how this could happen? And what did they know (or not) and when did they know it. Or not? Heads, or at least one, must roll. Most people seemed to have fixed on Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta as the designated fall guy/person.

Joel Brenner, a former top American counterintelligence officer told the Associated Press that the breach “makes it hard for any of those people to function as an intelligence officer. The database also tells the Chinese an enormous amount of information about almost everyone with a security clearance. That’s a gold mine. It helps you approach and recruit spies.”

Former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden said this is “a tremendously big deal.” He told the Wall Street Journal this is just the kind of info the CIA and NSA would like to get on the Chinese. But they, apparently, got there first.

Hayden said if he’d had the chance to grab similar data from the Chinese government while at the CIA “I would not have thought twice. … This is not ‘shame on China,'” he said. “This is ‘shame on us’ for not protecting that kind information.” Which brings us to the next question: What next?

The information is gone. What will be done with it remains to be seen — and in the case of current and former feds — felt. Will your credit be destroyed? Will you be approached in a bar?

And the good news. Almost forgot.

The “good” news, if it can be called that, is that some of the hacked and highly sensitive covers some people in the legislative branch. Employees of the House and Senate. So now they are in the same boat as hacked feds “downtown”, which is anyplace in government not on Capitol Hill.

Congress has been beating up on feds a lot lately. It has tried to punish rank-and-file employees for mistakes — real and perceived — made by their political masters. The IRS is a case in point. The House Appropriations Committee this week voted to cut its funds $800 million in the next fiscal year.

The government has promised to provide 18 months of credit screening to hacked employees. But is that long enough? How about for five years.? Or as some have suggested, life? The were targeted and hacked for one reason: Because they work or worked for the federal government.

Some members of Congress might be ready, willing and happy to let feds dangle in credit limbo. To cut them loose after 18 months. But now that some congressional staffers — the people who do the grunt work, research and write bills — are in the mix, maybe the situation will look different.

So, good new? Perhaps. Sometimes misery needs company!

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

NEARLY USELESS FACTOID

By Michael O’Connell

The dye used to color the pink Good & Plenty candies is made from the crushed bodies of the female cochineal insect.

Source: Wikipedia

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