http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2015/07/after-dodging-bullet-hit-opm-interior-owns-cyber-problem/117904/
By Aliya Sternstein
Nextgov.com
July 15, 2015
Sometimes fear is the best motivator. At the Interior Department, this was
the case when computer hackers stole millions of federal employee records
from an Office of Personnel Management database stored inside one of
Interior's data centers. The assailants left Interior's data unscathed.
But point taken, Interior Chief Information Officer Sylvia Burns said
Wednesday afternoon.
The incident, part of a historic hack against the U.S. government,
prompted the department to expedite a goal of eliminating wimpy passwords
as the only safeguard when signing in to agency systems.
The intruders, suspected Chinese spies, used a stolen password from an OPM
contractor to copy OPM's database, according to federal officials. From
OPM's network, the bad guys then scampered across the entire Interior
facility's IT environment, Burns said. All other data, however, was not
compromised, she said.
"When I, as a CIO for the department, learned of the intrusion, it was
horrifying to me and since that time, my team and I have been on high
alert working probably seven days a week, long hours to take our lessons
learned and do a mitigation plan around it," Burns said.
[...]
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