Yesterday, it was announced the United States Postal Service (USPS) was hacked. This hack attack goes as far back as mid-September 2014.
No customers were affected by the attack. No credit card numbers or transactions done online or in? USPS stations were hit. But the information of as many as 800,000 post office employees, including names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and addresses were compromised. Employees affected range from the lowest paid mail hand to Postmaster General Patrick Donahue himself. Officials say the hacker/s weren’t interested in committing ID theft or credit card fraud. While no specific culprit has been named, China is suspected. The Chinese government vehemently denies being involved in this, or in any cyber attack. They let it be known they have a strict anti-cyber crime policy. To add suspicion, China was suspected in the hacking of the Federal Office of Personal Management. Plus, cyber security experts say it makes sense for China to target a major federal agency like USPS. Hackers may assume their post office systems are just alike. If they ever wanted to get lots of info on a huge number of government employees at once, the USPS would be the jackpot. Motives could include everything from building their own companies to building intelligence.
I always thought fraud and ID theft were the worst things that came from hacking. I’m starting to think twice about that. Being personally ripped off from a computer is awful, but for one government to compromise another can be outright dangerous. And what about these employees? It’s chilling that all their addresses and names could be in the hands of foreigners they will never meet. Scarier still their personal information could be used for? foreign intelligence purposes, and there’s no telling what the intelligence could be used for. Or am I blowing this out of proportion? Do government and private security companies need to do more to prevent cyber attacks of entire entities?