Massive Fed Data Breach of Personnel Records Could Touch Every Gov't Agency

WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) -- Hackers broke into the U.S. government personnel office and stole identifying information of at least 4 million federal workers.

The White House is seen from the top of the Washington Monument in Washington, DC, October 1, 2014. (AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Thursday that at the beginning of May, data from the Office of Personnel Management and the Interior Department was compromised.

As many as 4 million federal workers may be affected, according to the Hill.

The Wall Street Journal reported that hackers in China are behind the attack, although authorities are still looking into what happened.

"The FBI is conducting an investigation to identify how and why this occurred," a statement said.

A U.S. official who declined to be identified said the data breach could potentially affect every federal agency. One key question is whether intelligence agency employee information was compromised.

The Office of Personnel Management is the human resources department for the federal government, and it conducts background checks for security clearances. The OPM conducts more than 90 percent of federal background investigations, according to its website.

"Protecting our federal employee data from malicious cyber incidents is of the highest priority at OPM,” OPM Director Katherine Archuleta said Thursday, the Hill reported. “We take very seriously our responsibility to secure the information stored in our systems.”

In November, a former Department of Homeland Security contractor disclosed another cyberbreach that compromised the private files of more than 25,000 DHS workers and thousands of other federal employees.

DHS said its intrusion detection system, known as EINSTEIN, which screens federal Internet traffic to identify potential cyber threats, identified the hack of OPM's systems and the Interior Department's data center, which is shared by other federal agencies.

"DHS is continuing to monitor federal networks for any suspicious activity and is working aggressively with the affected agencies to conduct investigative analysis to assess the extent of this alleged intrusion," the statement said.