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You are viewing ARCHIVED CONTENT released online between 1 April 2010 and 24 August 2018 or content that has been selectively archived and is no longer active. Content in this archive is NOT UPDATED, and links may not function.By Dean Gonsowski
In the good ol’ days, cyber crimes and high-profile hacks were mostly limited to the theft of valuable content like credit card information. Nowadays, these virtual attacks have not only increased in frequency, but in variety as well. And, in some instances, hackers appear to be using a “hack first, ask questions later” type of strategy.
Recently, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) disclosed that 5.6 million sets of fingerprints had been stolen in a previous, notable hack. This disclosure was related to the high-profile hack where hackers purloined 21 million Social Security numbers.
With this new fingerprint loss looming large, the government is still attempting to do damage control. But, it appears that people in the hacked database included current and former federal employees, in addition to people who had applied for background checks and their relatives. Interestingly, part of the government’s “spin” was to claim that the fingerprint data isn’t a threat – at least as of yet.
Read the complete article at: Hackers Know Your Data, Even if You Don’t