USPS Hacked, 800,000 Employees' Info Accessed

According to the agency, over 800,000 employees of the USPS have had their personal data stolen from the postal service’s servers. When you consider that the USPS employs just under 500,000 people (below 800,000 in the 90’s) then you realize that the data stolen includes both current and former employees of the USPS. The data breach mostly affects employees of the USPS rather than customers who may have done business with them. They do state that the USPS’ customers that have done business with them between the months of July and August may have had their contact information lost, but no credit card or payment data was obtained by the hackers.

The USPS has a long and detailed FAQ that answers consumers questions about the data breach and whether or not their data has been compromised. The interesting thing about this breach is that it isn’t a typical breach where hackers are going after customer data or going after credit card data or passwords. The hackers in this specifically went after the employee data of the USPS and were able to gain access to what appears to be all of it. The USPS isn’t clearly saying what employee data had been stolen, but the USPS official release states that it the data stolen includes, “The employee information potentially compromised in the incident included some employee personally identifiable information (PII), such as names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses and other information including beginning and end dates of employment, and emergency contact information.”