Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Blake Farenthold, R-Texas
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and House Oversight Committee Subcommittee on Postal Service Chairman Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, today released the following statement in response to the United States Postal Service’s announcement that the Chinese purportedly hacked the agency’s data:
“This is a serious security breach that has put the personal information of Americans at risk. The Committee is deeply concerned about this cyber attack, and will continue to press the Postal Service for answers about how hackers were able to pierce the agency’s security protocols. Additionally, it underscores the dire need for information security reform, which the committee has pursued through FISMA reforms. The Postal Service must do a better job securing the information of the American public.
“Furthermore, the Committee understands the Postal Service has known about this attack since September and presented this information to Congress several weeks ago, but did so as a classified matter. The Committee will also be seeking information about why the Administration waited two months before making the news of this attack public and preventing victims from taking proactive measures to secure their own information. We have not been told why the agency no longer considers the information classified.”
via Issa/Farenthold on Postal Service’s Security Breach | Committee on Oversight & Government Reform.
Union and NAME of Local/Branch
Trenton Metro Area Local 1020
Office held, if any
Steward/Human Relations Director
I would venture to think the Post Office kept this one under wraps because it did not truly directly affect the customers. The USPS probably did not want to create panic with the public. However, Issa doesn’t seem to care one bit about the USPS Employees who have had ALL of our Personal Information compromised. 800,000 USPS employees were affected by this. When your Social Security number, address, name, dates of employment and emergency contacts are all out there, a year of Credit Monitoring will not make much of a difference. Anyone that has this infomation can simply sit back and wait for the year to be up, then use the information they obtained.