By an amazing coincidence, the Office of Personnel Management released this damning news at the exact moment that the nation’s eyes were turned to Pope Francis’s reception at the White House:
The Office of Personnel Management announced Wednesday that 5.6 million people are now estimated to have had their fingerprint information stolen.
That number was originally thought to be about 1.1 million, OPM said in a statement. About 21.5 million individuals had their Social Security Numbers and other sensitive information affected by the hack.
According to OPM, “federal experts believe that, as of now, the ability to misuse fingerprint data is limited.” The office acknowledged, however, that future technologies could take advantage of this information.
The rest, via CNBC, is here.
This is merely one small part of what has broadly been described as the “biggest cyberattack in American history.”