Shutting down the background check system of the Office of Personnel Management employees will do little to prevent the abuse of millions of personal files of former, current and wannabe government workers that have already been stolen. But a shutdown was ordered anyway. Incredibly, OPM Director Katherine Archuleta described the shutdown as a “proactive, temporary suspension.” Proactive? After millions of files were compromised?
The shutdown, reportedly, will last 4-6 weeks or longer to allow the OPM investigation into the hacking of its systems and supposedly to minimize its vulnerability to future cyber attacks.
In hearings before Congress, OMP officials’ explanations of their system’s vulnerability to cyber attack were alarming. They suggest that most, if not all, government cybersecurity efforts are next to meaningless.
