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Horrible breach of security

No wonder it took government officials so long to admit the gravity of a computer security breach a few weeks ago. It may be the most significant intelligence failure of all time.

Though hackers gained access to personal information about hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of federal employees to use in a massive identity theft scheme, that success pales in comparison to what else they obtained.

Initially, officials said only that a major cyber attack had occurred and a substantial amount of personal information on some government employees had been stolen. The records, including names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers, is all the hackers need to steal an enormous sum from banks, credit card companies, etc.

A few days later, a union representing many government workers revealed what officials had not, that data on virtually all federal employees was compromised.

Still later, at the end of last week, the alarming full truth came out. It was admitted that among files stolen by the hackers was a very special category of records – on employees and operatives of U.S. intelligence services. Again, all of them may have been involved.

Those files are much more detailed than information collected on other government employees. For purposes of checking on potential security risks, intelligence agencies want to know a lot about those doing classified work. Very sensitive, comprehensive information on individuals and their families is included.

It appears to be just the kind of information a foreign spy agency might use to compromise American intelligence operatives.

And the hackers may be from the Chinese government, though anyone with the information would find willing buyers flush with cash all over the world.

It is bad enough that government computer security is so weak that all federal employees now must fear identity theft. But giving away information that could do enormous harm to national security is much worse.

How could this happen? A more worrisome question is whether Americans can have any confidence an even worse breach of cyber security will not occur.

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