As many as 800,000 employees might have had their personal information compromised in a U.S. Postal Service data breach.
Personal information — possibly including names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, dates of employment and contact information — of USPS workers may have been exposed in the breach.
It is unclear how many employees were affected, USPS announced, and the group employs more than 800,000 workers.
“This incident impacts every employee in the organization, including me,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in a video message to ?employees. “The Postal Service has put a lot of effort over the years to protect our computer system, and the bad guys have not been successful until now.”
No customer financial or credit card information is believed to have been compromised, though information for those who contacted the Postal Service Customer Care center between Jan. 1 and Aug. 16 might be at risk.
Customers do not need to do anything in response to the leak, the Postal Service said.
“We see no evidence that any of this information was used in malicious activity, nor for identity theft,” Donahoe said. “We can’t be sure that any of this data was actually stolen from our network, but we cannot rule it out.”
The Postal Service first reported the breach to Congress in September, according to a report from the Washington Post. Employees were not notified until today.
The Chinese government is suspected in the hack, according to the Washington Post. Multiple cyber attacks on corporate and governmental computer systems have been traced to China in recent years, though the Chinese government has repeatedly denied involvement.
This is the latest in a handful of computer hacks into federal government programs in 2014, including a weeks long cyber attack on the White House disclosed in October.
“This type of security intrusion isn’t unique,” Donahoe said.
There is no single regulating body for federal data protection in the U.S. ?government.
The USPS is working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to find the source of the breach.
“We began investigating this incident as soon as we learned of it, and we are cooperating with the investigation, which is ongoing,” USPS Media Relations Manager David Partenheimer said. “The intrusion is limited in scope and all operations of the Postal Service are functioning ?normally.”
Alden Woods
