By Eric Katz
June 11, 2015
In response to what was one of the largest data breaches in American history, the Office of Personnel Management has offered 4 million current and former federal employees free credit monitoring and identity theft insurance.
That approach may completely miss the mark, experts say.
Media reports and now lawmakers have said that state actors — likely from China – appear to be behind the attack, rather than individuals looking to exploit employees’ financial information. Credit monitoring, therefore, is a nice offer but one that is unlikely to protect federal employees from their adversaries’ true intentions.
“Credit reporting is lip service,” said Richard Blech, CEO of Secure Channels Inc., a cybersecurity firm that provides encryption technology and authentication services. “It means nothing.”
Ken Ammon, chief strategy officer for Xceedium, a network security company that contracts with the government and commercial enterprises, said credit monitoring is fine as a “first step,” though it serves more to protect the infiltrated organization legally than it does the individual from bad actors.
Experts refer to the hack as “cyber espionage,” rather than “cyber crime.” Individuals that illegally obtain data such as Social Security numbers and addresses can use that information for identity theft as it relates to credit card information, for example, but state actors do not hold those same interests.
