The other day I was watching the June 24, 2015 CSPAN coverage of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Katherine Archuleta and other government officials and vendors testified at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s second hearing on the cause and extent of a data breach of the OPM information systems.
I was struck by the comments of the gentleman from Virginia Rep. Gerald Connolly who had this to say regarding the cause of the data breach:
” What we are facing is much bigger than a management snafu. We are facing a systematic, organized, financed pernicious campaign by the Chinese government in the form of the People Liberation Army (PLA) with a trained unit to penetrate weak spots in our cyber world. It may include the federal government, retail, commercial enterprises and banks among them.
To pretend somehow that this is Ms. Archeletta ‘s fault is to really miss the big picture and do a disservice to our country.
We have a bigger threat, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we are engaged in a low level but intense new kind of Cold War – a Cyber War, with certain adversaries, including China and Russia. And it is every bit as much a threat to the security and stability of our country an we need to gird ourselves for this battle. And its not OK to dismiss testimony that resources were denied.
This committee led the effort and I probably co sponsored the bill to modernize how we purchase and manage our IT assets in the federal government.
Is this important? Why are these people here today before us? Because it is important and Congress has neglected it! We can’t have it both ways.
So why we certainly hold Ms. Archelleta responsible, as director of the OPM for their managing this breach, and we have every right to question why the breach occurred. To make a scapegoat in this Alice & Wonderland world we created here sometimes…”
Source: CSPAN http://www.c-span.org/video/?326767-1/opm-director-katherine-archuleta-testimony-data-security-breach
Security Clearances – Non recoverable.
See video: U.S. officials: Security clearance info stolen during OPM breach https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4bUr2Z3aoI
FBI report
See video: FBI suspects China of government hack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIT9AYNYFQY
See related video: The OPM Data Breach Just Got Much Worse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7p4U_C8SEE
See video: CHINA HACKING U.S. – 2nd Hack of Federal Records Hits Intelligence & Military https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgb1rxpXr18