A private company that conducts security background checks for federal employees had a “cybersecurity intrusion,” the Department of Homeland Security has said. The FBI has launched an investigation, and a multi-agency response team is attempting to figure out the scope of the breach, DHS said. DHS said that some of its employees may have been affected and is urging its entire workforce to monitor their financial accounts for suspicious activity.
News of the release comes after the New York Times reported Russian hackers stole 1.2 billion user names and passwords in a series of Internet heists impacting 420,000 websites. The identities of the websites that were broken into weren’t identified. The reported break-ins are the latest incidents to raise doubts about the security measures that both big and small companies use to protect people’s information online.
