WASHINGTON – The personal information of 237,000 current and former federal government employees has been exposed in a data breach at the United States Department of Transportation (DOT), sources briefed on the matter said on Friday.
The breach hit systems for processing TranServe transit benefits that reimburse government employees for some commuting costs. It was not clear if any of the personal information had been used for criminal purposes.
DOT said in a statement to Reuters that the breach did not affect any transport safety systems. It did not say who might be responsible for the hack.
The department is investigating the breach and has frozen access to the transit benefit system until it has been secured and restored, it said.
The maximum benefit allowance is US$280 (S$375) a month for federal employee mass transit commuting costs.
US federal employees and agencies have been targets of hackers in the past.
Two breaches at the US Office of Personnel Management in 2014 and 2015 compromised sensitive data belonging to more than 22 million people, including 4.2 million then current and former employees, along with fingerprint data of 5.6 million individuals.
Suspected Russian hackers who used SolarWinds and Microsoft software to burrow into US federal agencies breached unclassified Justice Department networks and read e-mails at the Treasury, Commerce and Homeland Security departments. Nine federal agencies were breached, Reuters reported in 2021. REUTERS
