A data breach at the US Navy has exposed the social security numbers and names of more than 130,000 current and former sailors, officials confirmed late on Wednesday—adding that "unknown individuals" had accessed the sensitive information.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise told the US Navy that one of its laptops operated by a contractor had been "compromised," however it didn't provide any further information about how the breach—affecting 134,386 sailors—had occurred.

"The Navy takes this incident extremely seriously—this is a matter of trust for our sailors," said chief of naval personnel vice admiral Robert Burke. "We are in the early stages of investigating and are working quickly to identify and take care of those affected by this breach."

It first learned of the incident on October 27 and said that a probe was now underway.

Sailors whose details have been compromised are being notified by phone, letter, and e-mail, the Navy said. "For those affected by this incident, the Navy is working to provide further details on what happened, and is reviewing credit monitoring service options for affected sailors."

It added: "At this stage of the investigation, there is no evidence to suggest misuse of the information that was compromised."

HPE was not available for comment at time of publication.

Update

After this story was published, HPE responded to Ars with the following statement: