ANALYSIS/OPINION

The incompetence of the U.S. government in allowing the records of millions of federal workers to be hacked and stolen is simply staggering.

Fox News reports that according to private security firm CrowdStrike’s founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, the Chinese are compiling a massive ‘Facebook’ like database on American federal government employees for use in espionage and blackmail.

The data was stolen from high profile attacks against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as well as intrusions into the Anthem and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield health insurance networks.

“That can now be used to embarrass you publicly and force you to work for the Chinese government,” Alperovitch says. “It’s, in effect, a private version of Facebook with much more detail about your life than even Facebook has that the Chinese now have access to.”

Having been through the top secret security clearance process myself, it is truly unnerving that information given in strict confidentiality was allowed to be released. We are talking about very personal information such as prior medical, criminal, educational history, and more. The real scary part of all this is that experts believe the Chinese are interested primarily in the applicant’s children. That simple fact means the damage done will last for decades.

“To try to get them to reveal some information about their parent’s work and use that, eventually, for espionage activities,” Alperovitch explained. “Information that has been collected about them may be used decades later.”

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