March 17, 2014

JULY DOE CYBER SECURITY BREACH WORSE THAN INITIALLY THOUGHT

By ExchangeMonitor

A cyber security breach that occurred at the Department of Energy in late July impacted significantly more employees than initially believed, according to a message DOE sent employees late last week. An ongoing investigation into the incident has found that the personal information of more than 104,000 current and former federal employees, contractor workers and dependents was compromised, of which 64,480 “are personnel within our direct DOE Federal and M&O Contractor community, including spouses, dependents and former employees,” says the message from Chief of Staff Kevin Knobloch, a copy of which Weapons Complex Morning Briefing obtained yesterday. DOE had initially estimated that approximately 14,000 current and former employees had been affected by the cyber security incident.

Knobloch also said the investigation has found that the bank account numbers used for salary direct deposit for approximately 2,800 employees have also been compromised. The investigation into the incident remains ongoing, as does a DOE Inspector General’s Office management review “of the facts leading up to the attack and compromise of the MIS application and the applications and databases to which it connects,” Knobloch said. “The Department continues to examine and strengthen the policies and systems in place to protect our repositories of sensitive personal information,” Knobloch said. “Where appropriate, new protections are being put in place to further strengthen our cyber defenses and restrict unauthorized disclosure. As is always the case, we must all be vigilant not to collect, store or otherwise retain sensitive personal information that is not absolutely required for doing DOE business.” DOE declined to provide any additional comment on the issue yesterday.

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