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Breach of Employee Data Wider Than Initial Report, U.S. Says

A sign stands outside of the Theodore Roosevelt Building, headquarters of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, June 5, 2015. The disclosure by U.S. officials that Chinese hackers stole records of as many as 4 million government workers is now being linked to the thefts of personal information from health-care companies. The hackers, thought to have links to the Chinese government, got into the OPM computer system late last year, according to one U.S. official.

A sign stands outside of the Theodore Roosevelt Building, headquarters of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, June 5, 2015. The disclosure by U.S. officials that Chinese hackers stole records of as many as 4 million government workers is now being linked to the thefts of personal information from health-care companies. The hackers, thought to have links to the Chinese government, got into the OPM computer system late last year, according to one U.S. official.

Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Toluse Olorunnipa
Updated on

Hackers may have accessed a second set of U.S. government personnel records, including employee background investigations, in one of the largest thefts of data on federal workers, the White House said.

The second intrusion was carried out by the same hackers who stole records on more than 4 million federal workers maintained by the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources agency, according to a U.S. official who asked for anonymity because of a continuing probe.