Bureaucratic bungle hurts 21 million people, costs taxpayers $500 million
Published: September 2nd, 2015
Lax security by bureaucrats may cost us $500 million.
In all, 21 ½-million people had their personal data hacked from computers at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
These include current and former federal employees, plus job applicants, plus contractors, plus their families.
The data theft started in spring of 2014, yet millions of victims are still unaware that their identity and finances are at risk, stolen by international gangs of hackers.
Feds are paying a private security firm $133 million to start sending out notices, then to provide identify theft relief for the victims. The ultimate cost estimate is half a billion dollars.
And instead of punishing the bureaucrats who blew it, the Administration plans to take most of that money from the Pentagon’s budget.
Don’t you wonder — when the feds do such a poor job with our personal data, why think they can do better on anything else?