21.5 Million People Affected In Largest U.S. Government Hack In History

At left, Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Katherine Archuleta.

Susan Walsh / AP

Personal information of about 21.5 million current and former federal employees, as well as job applicants and contractors, was stolen when hackers infiltrated the government’s database for background checks, officials confirmed to BuzzFeed News Thursday.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said that 19.7 million people who applied for a background check and 1.8 million non-applicants — mostly spouses or co-habitants — were affected in what is the largest data breach in U.S. government history.

The figure is much larger than OPM officials had previously stated, when they said 4.2 million current and former federal employees had been compromised. The breach was a result of two separate but related hacking incidents, OPM said.

According to the OPM, some of the breached records include interviews conducted by background investigators and about 1.1 million fingerprints. The agency doesn’t believe the information has been misused or further disseminated.

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