The Department of Transportation (DoT) is investigating a data breach affecting administrative systems at the department, an agency spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk today.
According to a Reuters report, DoT notified Congress of the data breach on Friday, which exposed the personal information of about 237,000 current and former Federal government employees.
“The Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) at DoT is continuing to investigate a data breach affecting the department. The preliminary investigation has isolated the breach to certain administrative systems at the department used for functions such as employee transit benefits processing,” a DoT spokesperson told MeriTalk. “It did not affect any transportation safety systems.”
“With the support of other Federal agencies, including CISA [the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency], the OCIO is addressing the breach and has suspended access to relevant systems while we further investigate the issue, and secure and restore the systems,” the spokesperson said.
DoT did not say when the hack was first discovered or who might be responsible for it.
DoT is the latest agency to face a data breach, after the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) responded to a ransomware attack and data breach in February that compromised sensitive law enforcement information.
Additionally, last fall a Federal judge granted final approval for the $63 million settlement for victims of the 2015 Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data breach, ending a seven-year legal battle over one of the Federal government’s largest publicly reported security failures.
