How Much Worse Can the China Data Hacking Get?

[Valin]

National Review/The Corner:

Patrick Brennan

June 11, 2015

 

First, as John Schindler, a Naval War College professor and former NSA employee, explains, it’s gradually being revealed that the Chinese hackers who broke into the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management got more than just, say, the Social Security numbers of federal employees. The Times reports that intelligence officials are now telling members of Congress that huge swaths of data on federal employees, including information like contacts with foreign nationals (ahem, including Chinese nationals) disclosed on background-investigation forms, was probably stolen. If the hackers have all the information that goes into said forms, held by the OPM . . . Schindler explains:

 

 

Whoever now holds OPM’s records possesses something like the Holy Grail from a CI perspective. They can target Americans in their database for recruitment or influence. After all, they know their vices, every last one — the gambling habit, the inability to pay bills on time, the spats with former spouses, the taste for something sexual on the side (perhaps with someone of a different gender than your normal partner) — since all that is recorded in security clearance paperwork (to get an idea of how detailed this gets, you can see the form, called an SF86,here).

 

Do you have friends in foreign countries, perhaps lovers past and present? They know all about them. That embarrassing dispute with your neighbor over hedges that nearly got you arrested? They know about that too. Your college drug habit? Yes, that too. Even what your friends and neighbors said about you to investigators, highly personal and revealing stuff, that’s in the other side’s possession now.

 

 

More:

 

 

(Snip)