Data breach hits US government workers

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China blamed for “massive breach” in cyber security affecting the data of millions of US government workers, reports said.

 Four million current and former federal employees might have had their personal information hacked, the Office of Personnel Management said on Thursday.

 U.S. officials believe this could be the biggest breach ever of the government’s computer network and includes nearly every federal government agency. Employees of the legislative,  judicial branches and uniformed military personnel were not affected.

 Mrs. Collins called the breach, “yet another indication of a foreign power probing successfully and focusing on what appears to be data that would identify people with security clearances”.

U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said hackers are one of the “greatest challenges we face on a daily basis.”

“It’s clear that a substantial improvement in our cyber databases and defenses is perilously overdue,” Schiff said in a statement. “That’s why the House moved forward on cybersecurity legislation earlier this year, and it’s my hope that this latest incident will spur the Senate to action.”