Unreal: CNN Blames Republicans For Gross Incompetence Of Obama’s OPM Appointee…

CNN posted this tweet after she stepped down earlier today:

Which links to this story (note the headline):

Via: Weasel Zippers

Continue Reading....

[VIDEO] [BREAKING] OPM director Katherine Archuleta resigns in wake of data breach

U.S. personnel chief Katherine Archuleta resigned Friday in the wake of massive data breach that allowed hackers to steal the records of more than 21 million people under her watch, Fox News confirmed.

Archuleta submitted her resignation to President Obama Friday morning. Her resignation is effective at the close of business today.

She will be replaced by Beth Cobert, who currently works in the White House budget office, White House sources told Fox News. 

"This is the absolute right call,” House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz said in a written statement following the announcement. “OPM needs a competent, technically savvy leader to manage the biggest cybersecurity crisis in this nation's history. The IG has been warning about security lapses at OPM for almost a decade. This should have been addressed much, much sooner but I appreciate the President doing what's best now.”

Calls for Archuleta to go grew in recent weeks following a massive government data breach on her watch.

Less than 24 hours earlier, Archuleta had rebuffed demands that she resign, telling reporters she had no intention of leaving and that her agency was doing everything it could to address concerns about the safety of data in its hands.

But on Friday morning, Archuleta told Obama it was best for her to step aside to let new leadership respond to the recent breaches and to improve systems to lessen risks in the future. 

White House spokesman Josh Earnest insisted Friday that Archuleta submitted her resignation at her own volition, and added it is "quite clear" to the president that new leadership at OPM is desperately needed. 

In a statement, Archuleta made no direct reference to the data breach, saying only that she believed it was best to allow the agency to "move beyond the current challenges." She praised the agency's employees as "some of the most dedicated, capable and hardworking individuals in the federal government."

"I have complete confidence in their ability to continue fulfill OPM's important mission of recruiting, retaining and honoring a world-class workforce to serve the American people," Archuleta said.

Archuleta's position appeared to become unsustainable given the scope of the data breach and the mounting calls from lawmakers in both parties for her to resign. On Thursday, within hours of the Obama administration releasing new details about the scope of the breach, House Republican leaders demanded new leadership in the agency, and a number of Democrats followed.

California Rep. Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Archuleta's resignation "will help to restore confidence in an agency that not only poorly defended sensitive data of millions of Americans but struggled to respond to repeated intrusions."

"This change in leadership is also an acknowledgement that we cannot simply place blame on the hackers, but need to take responsibility for the protection of personal information that is so obvious a target," Schiff said.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading....

John Boehner joins growing calls for OPM director's resignation

Speaker John Boehner and the House’s other two top Republicans want Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta to resign following the latest massive data breach at her agency – which today officially reached 21.5 million individuals compromised.

“It has taken this administration entirely too long to come to grips with the magnitude of this security breach – a breach that experts agree was entirely foreseeable,” Boehner said in a statement after Thursday’s announcement of the magnitude of the breach of security clearance forms.

“President [Barack] Obama must take a strong stand against incompetence in his administration and instill new leadership at OPM so we can move forward in a fashion that begins to restore the confidence of the American people,” he added.

“Over the past few weeks, news of the OPM data breach has gone from bad, to worse, to absolutely inexplicable,” added House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. “Only with new leadership can we get a full accounting of what happened and, most importantly, how to prevent this from ever happening again.”

GOP Whip Steve Scalise also put out a statement calling for Archuleta’s resignation.

And in the Senate, so did senior Arizona Republican John McCain.

“I am troubled by the Administration’s lack of response and question how it continues to sit idly by as our adversaries exploit the United States on a continuous basis with little, or meaningless, reprisal,” McCain said. “It is time for new leadership at OPM.”

Via: Politico

Continue Reading....

[BREAKING] OPM Announces More Than 21 Million Affected by Second Data Breach

More than 21 million Social Security numbers were compromised in a breach that affected a database of sensitive information on federal employees held by the Office of Personnel Management, the agency announced Thursday.

That number is in addition to the 4.2 million social security numbers that were compromised in another data breach at OPM that was made public in June.

Of the 21.5 million records that were stolen, 19.7 million belonged to individuals who had undergone background investigation, OPM said. The remaining 1.8 million records belonged to other individuals, mostly applicants' families.

The records that were compromised include detailed, sensitive information about the individuals, including fingerprint data. OPM says 1.1 million compromised files included fingerprints.

Beyond the fingerprints and Social Security numbers, some of the files in the compromised database included "residency and educational history; employment history; information about immediate family and other personal and business acquaintances; health, criminal and financial history; and other details," OPM said.

Some records included "findings from interviews conducted by background investigators," and some included the usernames and passwords that applicants used to fill out investigation forms. And although separate systems that store health, financial, and payroll information do not appear to have been compromised, the agency says some mental health and financial information is included in the security clearance files that were affected by the hack.

This data breach, which officials have privately linked to China, began in May 2014, according to OPM Director Katherine Archuleta's testimony before Congress. It was not discovered until May 2015.

A security update applied by OPM and the Department of Homeland Security in January 2015 ended the bulk of the data extraction, according to congressional testimony from Andy Ozment, assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications at DHS, even though the breach would not be discovered for months.

An OPM statement said that individuals who underwent background investigations in or after the year 2000 are "highly likely" to have had their information compromised in the breach. (This includes both new applicants and employees that were subject to a "periodic reinvestigation" during that time.) But those who were investigated before 2000 may also have been affected.

News of the second intrusion was first reported in June and was described as a potentially devastating heist of government data, as hackers seized extensive security-clearance information intelligence and military personnel. OPM said at the time that it became aware of the second hack while investigating the smaller breach that affected 4.2 million, which was disclosed earlier in June.

The size of the breach exceeds most of the estimates previously reported in various media outlets, including CNN, which said last month that the FBI believed 18 million people had been affected by the hack.

The personnel agency said Thursday that it has not seen any indication that the stolen information has been "misused" or otherwise disseminated.

Via: National Journal

Continue Reading....

The OPM Hack and Obama’s Politicization of the Federal Bureacracy

By now, it’s clear that hackers — believed to be tied to the Chinese government – stole files from the Office of Personnel Management that amount to a giant “how to blackmail anyone in the federal government” manual. This was America’s “cyber 9/11,” exposing an administration full of true believers in the expansion of government who can’t handle the most basic tasks of secret-keeping. 

How does a government failure so consequential — a foreign power accessing 18 million confidential records, including the intimate personal details of federal workers’ infidelity, drug abuse, and personal debts uncovered during the background-check process for security clearances — happen?

For many Obama critics on and off the Hill, the answer lies in a troubling pattern of incompetent management from Obama appointees selected more for their political loyalty than for their expertise, skill, or leadership abilities.

 RELATED: Why Are We Ignoring a Cyber Pearl Harbor? Before becoming the head of OPM, 

Katherine Archuleta had no background in the kind of work the agency does. Archuleta, a lawyer and former Clinton administration official, was national political director for President Obama’s reelection campaign. She served as the chief of staff to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solís, and was the City of Denver’s lead planner for the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Like the president, she has roots in “community organizing”: She co-founded the Latina Initiative, a Colorado organization aimed at getting more Hispanic voters involved in politics. (In 2011, the Latina Initiative suspended its operations, citing insufficient funding.) Nothing in this record suggests any expertise in the vitally important human resources and record-keeping functions OPM is supposed to serve.

Before the hack, Archuleta’s primary goals at OPM appeared to be increasing the diversity of the federal workforce and implementing Obamacare’s changes to federal workers’ health-insurance options.

Via: National Review

Continue Reading....

GOP lawmakers call on Obama to fire OPM chief after massive data breach

WASHINGTON –  House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, along with 17 other Republican lawmakers, on Friday called on President Obama to fire the embattled officials whose agency fell victim to a massive hack exposing federal employee data and security clearance information. 

Echoing statements he recently made at a House hearing, Chaffetz and the other lawmakers blamed Katherine Archuleta, director of the Office of Personnel Management, for the breach that’s been described as one of the worst in U.S. history. Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour should also be dismissed, a letter to Obama states.

“Simply put, the recent breach was entirely foreseeable, and Director Archuleta and CIO Donna Seymour failed to take steps to prevent it from happening despite repeated warnings,” the two-page letter states. 

Officials are still exploring the extent of the breach. Though it was initially reported that about 4 million people were affected, lawmakers have since been told a pair of hacks are expected to affect at least 18 million -- and as many as 30 million. 

According to the Inspector General’s FY 2014 audit, 11 out of 47 major information systems at OPM lacked proper security authorization. Five of those systems were under Seymour.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading...

[VIDEO] OPM HEAD UNSURE OF FILES IT MAINTAINS, HOW MANY PEOPLE’S INFORMATION EXPOSED

Office of Personnel Management Director (OPM) Katherine Archuleta was unsure of how many employees and retirees’ information her agency oversees and might have been breached in testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

Archuleta was asked by Chairman 

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)

80%

 how many federal employees and retirees her agency has personally identifiable information for. She responded, “We have 2.7 individuals who are full-time employees, and 2.4 who are –” before Chaffetz cut her off to say, “No, I asked you — you have personal, identifiable information for how many employees and retirees?”

Archuleta continued, “The number I just gave you includes the number of employees and retirees, and personally identifiable information within those files depends on whether they’ve had a background investigation or whether their personnel file –” Chaffetz again cut in, asking, “How many records do you have?”

Archuleta then told Chaffetz she will ask someone else, he told Archuleta that as the head of the agency, she should know. He then read a letter she wrote the Appropriations chairs in the House and the Senate that said her agency had the personal, identifiable information for 32 million federal employees and retirees. Chaffetz then asked, “Are you here to tell me that that information is all safe or is it potentially 32 million records that are at play here?”

She answered, “As I mentioned to you earlier in my testimony, Mr. Chairman, we’re reviewing the number, and the scope of the breach and the impact to all of the records.” Chaffetz asked, “So, it could be as high as 32 million? Is that right?” He was told that Archuleta “will not give a number that is not completely accurate.”

Chaffetz continued to press the issue, stating he was only asking for a range, not an exact number and wondering if 32 million people’s information could be exposed. “I’m not going to give you a number that I am not sure of.”

Chaffetz then asked, “And when they fill out the SF86, that would include other people that identified within those forms, correct?” Archuleta answered that this was correct. He then asked if there was an average number of people who are identified on an SF86, to which he was told that there is no average that Archuleta knows of.

The questioning concluded with Chaffetz asking, “When you asked for $32 million more in your budget request, it was because you had 32 million federal employees identified, and former employees, correct?” Archuleta answered, “That — the number of employees that we have, yes, we’re asking for support for our cybersecurity –

Via: Breitbart

Continue Reading....

Why the latest government hack is worse than the Snowden affair

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Katherine Archuleta testifies on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. (Cliff Owen/Associated Press

When you read about the recent hack of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), in which China is thought to have filched millions of security clearance application forms, you might have shrugged your shoulders. Just another hack, right? No big deal, right? Wrong. This cyber burglary is an even greater intelligence catastrophe than the Edward Snowden affair. And our negligent leaders, bureaucracies and their contractors need to be held responsible.

When I applied for my security clearance in 2010, as I was preparing to work with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan as a social scientist, I filled out a long form called an SF-86. Practically everyone with a federal government security clearance knows this document. It takes a lot of time to complete and requires in-depth disclosures of a very personal nature. My SF-86 contains my Social Security number, information about my credit history, my job history (including a dispute with a past employer), contact information for my closest friends and family in the United States and abroad, all non-Americans with whom I am close, a list of every foreign official I ever met, every place I lived and people who could verify that I lived there, and much more. If I had ever been arrested or had any history of drug abuse, I would have had to report that, too.

So you can understand my frustration when I discovered that China had likely hacked the OPM and two of its contractors and made off with at least 4 million SF-86s on former, current and prospective U.S. government workers.

Beyond narrow concerns about identity theft, think about the national security implications.

Via: Washington Post

Continue Reading.....