The Office of Personnel Management announced Tuesday that it will spend $133 million over the next three years to provide identity theft protection services to the 21.5 million people who had their personal information stolen in a massive hack of OPM computers.
OPM gave the contract to Theft Guard Solutions, a company that will get $133,263,550 to provide services to current, former and prospective government officials over the next three years.
“We remain fully committed to assisting the victims of these serious cybercrimes and to taking every step possible to prevent the theft of sensitive data in the future,” said Beth Cobert, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management. “Millions of individuals, through no fault of their own, had their personal information stolen and we’re committed to standing by them, supporting them, and protecting them against further victimization.”
“And as someone whose own information was stolen, I completely understand the concern and frustration people are feeling,” she added.
Cobert took over after Director Katherine Archuleta was forced out amid complaints from both Republicans and Democrats that she failed to seriously address the threat of a hack.
The 21.5 million people eligible for the identity theft services are those covered by OPM’s July announcement that millions of more people had their information stolen.
The second, larger hack followed an initial announcement that 4.2 million people had their data stolen in a separate event. OPM provided ID theft protection services for that group as well, at a cost of about $20 million.
That means the total spent by OPM to cover the two events is $153 million or so.
Many of the people caught up in the first hack were also caught up in the second one, and the total number of people affected by both events is 22.1 million.
In July, OPM told other federal agencies that they would have to chip in to pay the costs of ID theft protection services for the affected people.
