Chapter 3: Cybersecurity Mission and Management at The Department Of Homeland Security: Toward a Model of Integrated Adaptation

In 2014 hackers, using login information stolen from contractors, broke into U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) computer networks and stole personal information of more than 22 million applicants for government jobs and their families, friends, and acquaintances (Nakashima, 2015); 5 million of them had their fingerprints stolen (Paletta, 2015). The perpetrator, most likely the Chinese government, was inside the OPM network for 6 months; it took U.S. government authorities 4 months to discover the attack and secure the system. This was the most audacious of hundreds of cyber attacks on government and commercial systems in recent years, including on the Sony corporation, the U.S. State Department, the IRS, the Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; local governments, private companies, and individuals have all been subject to attacks by state governments, lone wolves, or hacktivist organizations such as Anonymous (Kelly, 2012).