OPM officials save hack details for classified briefing

Obama administration officials will brief House lawmakers Tuesday afternoon on the massive data breach at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

They’re expected to fill members in on the latest information about how many people may be affected by the theft and who might be behind it.

{mosads}The briefing will come directly after a Tuesday morning House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, during which several members expressed frustration that officials weren’t providing more details about the hack.

“I’ll just wait for the classified briefing,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), after a few of her questions were rebuffed.

The administration has said that hackers took roughly 4 million federal workers’ records. But most expect that number to expand to as many as 14 million. It could include military and intelligence agency personnel, government contractors and friends and families of government workers.

Officials acknowledged Friday that hackers had also accessed security clearance background checks for millions of military and intelligence agency personnel, but would not say how many people that second breach might affect.

But there weren’t many answers about the scale, scope or timeline of either breach in Tuesday’s public hearing.

“I believe that discussion that would best be held until this afternoon,” said OPM Director Katherine Archuleta. She gave similar answers to a series of other questions about the hack.

The answers, or lack of them, angered several lawmakers.

“This is one of those hearings where I think I’m going to know less coming out of this hearing than when I walked in,” said Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.).

“We need to be … more forthcoming with our own employees,” he added. “All of them deserve a lot more protection than they’re getting right now.”