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OPM Breach: Federal Government Upgrades Website After Major Hack

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On Monday, the US Office of Personnel Management made updates to the site created in the wake of the security breach that occurred in 2015, providing those affected with the newest information regarding the incident.

The Frequently Asked Questions section was reorganized into simple-to-understand categories like "What happened," "Who has been impacted," and "Protecting your identity." 

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"The website refresh was designed to streamline the content, make it more user-friendly and to include all of the progress our cybersecurity team has made to secure our systems over the last year," OPM spokesman Michael Amato said.

He added that the Office "received a lot of feedback from impacted individuals and we updated the website to help better answer their questions."

Last year, hackers gained access to the security clearance forms submitted by Americans applying to handle classified materials for the US government. The forms contained personal information on the applicants. Families of applicants may also be affected, as their personal information was also on the forms. 

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"In many cases, the information about these individuals is the same as information generally available in public forums, such as online directories or social media, and therefore the compromise of this information generally does not present the same level of risk of identity theft or other issues," the FAQ reads.

The number of people impacted by last year’s breach is believed to be 21.5 million, and Amato maintains that that estimate has remained unchanged. 

"We haven’t changed the number of people impacted by these incidents, or our definition of impacted," he said.

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