After 2015 breach, OPM overpaid for identify theft protections, report finds

The Office of Personnel Management appears to be overpaying for an identity theft insurance program it rolled out to protect more than 20 million current and former U.S. government employees whose personal information was exposed in the agency’s massive 2015 data breach, a government watchdog said. A newly released report by the Government Accountability Office notes that OPM is providing coverage at a level that is “likely unnecessary” because “claims paid rarely exceed a few thousand dollars.” Exasperating costs further is also the fact that the government know how many affected individuals might have signed up for two different government identify theft monitoring programs that essentially offer the same thing. Shortly after the breach was first publicly acknowledged, OPM contracted two firms, Winvale Group and ID Experts, to protect government employees that had their personal information exposed in the personnel records breach and separate breach of background investigation data. “OPM has estimated […]

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Congressional Report Slams OPM on Data Breach

The massive data breach at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that exposed background investigations and fingerprint data on millions of Americans was the result of a cascading series of cybersecurity blunders from the agency’s senior leadership on down to the outdated technology used to secure the sensitive data, according to a lengthy report released today by a key government oversight panel. Continue reading Congressional Report Slams OPM on Data Breach