OPM finishes notifying hack victims

The government agency behind this summer’s catastrophic data breach has finished notifying the over 20 million victims, roughly six months after the hacks were initially revealed.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on Friday said it had sent letters to about 93 percent of the people who had their Social Security number and other sensitive information stolen.

{mosads}The agency will continue to search for better addresses for the remainder of the people affected, it said.

OPM also recently launched a website to help people determine whether they are among the 21.5 million people hit by the security clearance hack, one of two intrusions that rattled the agency.

Some have criticized OPM for the drawn-out notification process. An early November report indicated that only a quarter of people had been told so far that their information was exposed at that point.

But OPM has defended its process, arguing that the scale of the breach, and a desire to make sure the notification process goes smoothly, necessitated a longer timeline.

“OPM has engaged in a rigorous process to notify impacted individuals through a method that prioritized the security of their information,” the agency said in a Friday release.

Victims of the breach are eligible for a slate of free credit monitoring services.

“OPM is dedicated to delivering high-quality identity protection services to impacted individuals,” said OPM press secretary Sam Schumach in a statement.

“The interagency team continues to review the impacted data to monitor for any misuse,” he added.