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Government Still Hasn't Notified Individuals Whose Personal Data Was Hacked
schwit1 writes: Months after the federal government admitted publicly that the personal data of more than 20 million government employees had been hacked they still have not sent notifications to those millions. The agency whose data was hacked, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), said the Defense Department will begin "later this month" to notify employees and contractors across the government that their personal information was accessed by hackers. OPM said notifications would continue over several weeks and "will be sent directly to impacted individuals." OPM also announced that it hired a contractor to help protect the identities and credit ratings of employees whose data was hacked. In a statement, OPM said it had awarded a contract initially worth more than $133 million to a company called Identity Theft Guard Solutions LLC, doing business as ID experts, for identity theft protections for the 21.5 million victims of the security data breach. The contractor will provide credit and identity monitoring services for three years, as well as identity theft insurance, to affected individuals and dependent children aged under 18, the agency said.
We had some idiot in our HR department of a US Government Agency with everyones personal information on their unencrypted laptop. Of course they left it in the back seat of their car and it was stolen. Nobody fired or demoted.
We also had our IT department send out an e-mail from a fake IP saying to follow a link to test the strength of your password. Something like 35% of the people fell for it.
Meanwhile I can't get the software I need to perform the work I am hired to do becaue I have so much crap running in the background of my machine that it's completely unstable.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Given this opm hack along with Ashley Madison and other cross correlating data that's been hacked, id assume the bigger threat is blackmail here. Sadly data security, even on sensitive military databases, is neglected and not even up to the crappy standards of many businesses.
Delayed long enough for OPM beurocrats to retire and form Identity Theft Guard Solutions LLC to make bank?
The fact that ID theft is a problem for consumers is mostly CROCK.
Why should lenders be allowed to commit libel WITH IMPUNITY against innocent consumers?
It is THEIR fault they didn't bother doing MINIMUM DUE DILIGENCE before loaning someone money!
What kind of IDIOT gives out money without VERIFYING who they are giving it to? Does ANYONE think that a SSN and DoB are "verification" of identity?
Companies and people should NOT be able to use credit reporting agencies to libel someone whose identity they haven't positively established with IMPUNITY.
Congress should IMMEDIATELY pass a law that if a lender can't provide POSITIVE PROOF that the person whose reputation they are trashing is in fact the SELF SAME person who they loaned money to, they should not be allowed to:
1) Put ANY adverse information in their credit report
2) Make ANY attempt to continue collection after the person asserts ONCE that he wasn't the person they loaned the money to
It should NEVER have been allowed that lenders get a free pass to be careless with THEIR money and then impose ANY of the cost of being defrauded due to THEIR OWN NEGLIGENCE on the innocent.
Write Congress on this one, folks!
Also, lawyers, how about a class action lawsuit against lenders for libel?
Best,
--PeterM
We had a data breech of personal data, and needed to contact all those involved. When we obtained everyone's email and mailing address, we were surprised how bad the data was, particularly anyone who left. One person moved to Melbourne, Austria. Other addresses were town name only, no state or zip. Whoever entered it just thought it was obvious where that town was. Email servers are shut down and replaced, or departments reorganized, and everyone's email changes. No one thinks to tell the personnel department about these changes. Then, when you have a need for the data, you find half of it out of date. When there is no problem, no one pays attention to the data and tries to fix the problems.
The good news is that data from the OPM hack has not been spotted for sale, this is likely because the OPM data is being used by the Chinese for espionage. The Chinese don't want your identity they want to know how they can approach you to get classified information.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
The article summary makes it seem as if no-one has been notified, but I know at least one person who works for the federal government that was notified a week or so after the leak was revealed (and given information about the credit monitoring agency).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
.. don't get your name, your photo, or anything that has anything to related to you, online - or even in a database, anywhere
Better move to Idaho, and build a compound. Oh wait - you'll still be in someone's database.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The most shocking statement in this article, to me, is that there are more than 20 million government employees in the US...that's over half the population of Canada!
Granted, that's only about 6% of the population of the US, but still...wow...that's a pretty high MER.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
You've never filled out an SF86, have you? No one else has that much information about you all in one file. Not even your relatives. A private investigator could get most of it, but it would be expensive to track down.
No one else except the Chinese apparently. :(
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.