New evidence emerging in China’s massive hack into federal background security checks of 4-14 million current and former workers went back at least 25 years, to the former George H.W. Bush administration, and threatens to scare people away from considering government work.
A former Defense Department procurement official in the Bush administration, who joined in 1990, said he is one of the tens of thousands of Washington area residents who received a notice from the Office of Personnel Management that their info was hacked by still unknown sources in China.
And Northern Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock, a former George W. Bush official who also received the OPM letter, said that the scandal threatens to scare off potential federal workers who are likely worry that the government can’t be trusted with their information.
Rep. Barbara Comstock wants new protections for federal workers against cyber attacks.
“When you give that information you’re a certainly expecting a level of trust,” she told Secrets. “How are you going to have a professional federal workforce if we can’t keep their information secure?” she added.
Comstock, who worked in Bush’s Justice Department and previously as a House committee lawyer, has demanded a personal briefing by OPM and, in a letter to agency boss Katherine Archuleta, raised the trust issue. She wants to know how far back the hack goes and what OPM is doing to prevent the next attempt.
“What is most alarming about this most recent criminal hack is that it was launched less than 18 months after a previous severe network assault on OPM. The trust between our federal employees, our citizens, and their government’s capability to thwart an attack is without a doubt damaged. Serious security measures to avoid these lapses need to be crafted and put in place in advance of the next attack. We owe this to all our federal government employees and senior government officials who disclose very sensitive and personal information when they receive their security clearances,” said Comstock.
A former defense official, Jed L. Babbin, told Secrets that his security clearance application dates to 1990 and that his OPM letter warned that his personal information was “compromised” in the hack.
Babbin, a defense expert who has written for the Examiner, said he was surprised that OPM wasn’t better able to block the hack considering proof China has been hacking into federal files since 1998. “There is no excuse,” he said.
Key paragraphs in the OPM letter to current and former federal workers.
More than just Social Security and financial info, Comstock said she is worried about CIA and Pentagon officials whose information was tagged in the hack.
A former top national security official suggested that extortion is a threat, especially against spies or insiders with sensitive war and weapons plans. “They might be trying to figure out who works at what department, who may have financial issues, who has been treated for alcoholism, who has three kids of college age but is pulling down just $80,000 working at the Sandia National Lab, and who is a immigrant from Hong Kong and has family still there,” said the source.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
