Hopefully the glitch between the United States and China will be fixed soon but it will be on for quite a while. A recent report by BBC said that at least 4 million federal workers were hit by a data breach and all evidences are pointing at China, or at least, it was traced back to China.
According to The Office of Personal Management (OPM), there are at least 4 million current and past employees that have been affected by it and far worse, the breach could potentially affect all federal agencies. On the other hand, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Susan Collins, released an official statement stating that the breach might have originated in China to which the Washington-based Chinese Embassy, through their spokesperson, Zhu Haiquan, denied and said that it was jumping into conclusions and is not responsible and counterproductive.
OPM said that they suspected a malicious activity sometime in April that affected their information systems and a similar suspicious activity occurred in the Department of Homeland Security at the start of May. The activities eventually led into compromising the agency's data.
As of this time, OPM is currently reaching out to those affected to have them protected against identity fraud or similar to the unlawful act. To add, according to OPM analysis, the breach could be a diversionary tactic and the attack is really on the country's security clearance information on government officials.
Also, the US government is not taking the breach lightly as they have learned from a recent cyber attack that can and compromise an institution like what happened to Sony Pictures.
On a related article, Reuters said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched a probe on the attack and promised to bring justice to the culprits.
Aside from the long battle of espionage accusations between US and China, the two powerhouses have recently engaged on a beef concerning the alleged intrusion of China on their neighbor countries in the South East, particularly The Philippines.
