According to The Washington Post:
The massive hack last year of the Office of Personnel Management's system containing security clearance information affected 21.5 million people, including current and former employees, contractors and their families and friends, officials said Thursday.
That is in addition to a separate hack – also last year — of OPM's personnel database that affected 4.2 million people. That number was previously announced.
Together, the breaches arguably comprise the most consequential cyber intrusion in U.S. government history. Administration officials have privately said they were traced to the Chinese government and appear to be for purposes of traditional espionage.
Update: Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta finally resigned mid-Friday.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Saturday July 11 2015, @12:02AM
30+ years ago when I got my clearance the NSA (then known as No Such Agency) interviewed the neighbors of my childhood home, my current neighbors, and anybody I listed as a friend or who connected to a friend. Of course, they didn't tell me they'd be doing this (pre internet yadda yadda). When I changed jobs I refused to get another clearance, having the FBI interview my childhood friend's parents pissed me off.
What really got me is that due to stupid marketing mistakes my company decreed that when a marketing person talked technical with a potential customer an engineer had to be present. I'd sit there with my security clearance keeping my mouth shut while the marketing droid with no clearance would talk classified stuff with the customer.
Stupid marketing mistakes? 3 times in 6 months 3 different sales reps sold things to customers that would have required a ground up redesign of our system. To be fair this was the early 80's and not many people understood the new digital world.
Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 11 2015, @12:28AM
So you worked for the NSA?
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday July 11 2015, @05:49PM
No, I worked on telemetry for nuclear missiles.
Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @04:02PM
> No, I worked on telemetry for nuclear missiles.
Then the NSA didn't do your investigation. Before all investigations were consolidated under DISCO, each agency handled their own.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday July 13 2015, @02:03PM
The clearance came from the NSA. People who told me they got interviews told me the agents identified themselves as FBI. I don't remember who the guys who interviewed me worked for. My sticking point was I smoked pot in high school, but quit when I was 20 or so.
Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.