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OPM Says 5.6 million Fingerprints Stolen In Cyberattack

Posted by samzenpus on from the bad-to-worse dept.

mschaffer writes: The Office of Personnel Management data breach that happened this summer just got a little worse. The OPM now says that 5.6 million people's fingerprints were stolen as part of the hacks. The Washington Post reports: "That's more than five times the 1.1 million government officials estimated when the cyberattacks were initially disclosed over the summer. However, OPM said Wednesday the total number of those believed to be caught up in the breaches, which included the theft of the Social Security numbers and addresses of more than 21 million former and current government employees, remains the same."

12 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Credentials by Isarian · · Score: 4, Informative

    And this is why fingerprints are NOT good credentials.

    1. Re:Credentials by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not really, all credentials can be stolen or copied. Fingerprints are just very difficult to change once they have been compromised. That's why that are bad credentials.

    2. Re:Credentials by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      "The OPM is emailing the people affected, advising them to change their fingerprints.

      The advice comes with guidelines for proper fingerprint security, such as having a fingerprints at least ten digits long, with at least one loop, one whorl, one arch, and one "special character". Also, it's recommended to never re-use your fingerprints for multiple sites, and to change your fingerprints at least once every 90 days, being sure to never re-use any of your last ten fingerprints."

  2. If you are going to steal... at least mess up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    In stealing the real finger prints. Should have randomly wlked the databases and reassign all finger-prints (even better individual fingers) to other persons, also other info (partial phone numbers, name, dates, what not) . So database would be worthless - trancate the SQL database logs a few times to be sure. :)

    See if the backup actually works or not. :)

    If you do not restore your database, how do you know it works??

  3. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Funny

    I demand that we vigorously close the barn door by implementing a robust biometric authentication infrastructure to prevent this from happening again!

    1. Re:SOMETHING MUST BE DONE! by bobdehnhardt · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Be sure to include DNA from the horses that have already left...

  4. Everyone, it was everyone by NotDrWho · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This same song-and-dance seems to play out with every big hack now:

    Week one:
    "It was just a few people who had some data limited compromised"

    Week two:
    It was just a few people who had most of their data compromised, but not their passwords

    Week three:
    "It was a lot of people, who had most of their data compromised, but not their passwords"

    Week four:
    "They got everything on everyone"

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  5. NOT Stolen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    This can't be stealing - the originals are still there !

    It's just that they made a copy of the data.

    --- RIAA

  6. That's just great... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Chinese have my background investigative report and my fingerprints for my government job. Next they will be shutting down the government for no reason.

  7. SF-86 forms by OffTheLip · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Very detailed histories of a persons family, including SSN's, were part of the heist via Form SF-86. Being a longtime defense department contractor whose security clearance details were likely compromised I am pissed. The forms included personal info from friends gracious enough to vouch for my veracity as a trusted agent for the US government. We were expected to protect paper and electronic copies of this form as we would other sensitive data. The joke appears to be on us.

  8. Infamous last words by Nidi62 · · Score: 5, Funny

    You can have my fingerprints when you pry them from my cold, dead.....oh.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  9. Maybe I'm nuts.. by TrimTabTim · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ....but over the last years, I've started to really cheer in glee every time there's a horrible breach of sensitive data.

    Only after a percentage of people are thoroughly harmed and screwed by the escape of sensitive information, will the world realize that there simply is no sound way to keep secrets safe. It is a logical fallacy for one to think they can make a system that is perfectly secure as every measure has a countermeasure

    Therefore, the only option that will remain after a sufficient number of people get fleeced, fucked and flogged will be to never collect it in the first place. To collect it, is to invite evil-doers to an all you can eat buffet.

    So celebrate the evil blackhats of the world!! Huzzah! For us to see progress, they must steal their billions, destroy lives, maim murder and pillage! Sure, we technology buffs understand risks and speak loudly about the NSAs, Facebooks and all the other "user abusers" of the world. But we clever geeks can never convince the masses to change their ways because our message is inconvenient.

    No sir. Until enough good people are fucked, the assholes of the world will keep winning the minds of innocent fools with lies like "If you've done nothing wrong you should have nothing to hide". How about this one, "We collect your information in order to better serve you". Orwell is spinning in his grave.

    Ending my rant: Good people need encryption and privacy the most, but they won't realize this until they've been burned by fire. So burn baby burn.