Nearly 6M US federal employees’ fingerprints stolen

WASHINGTON

The number of fingerprints stolen in a cyber attack on the U.S. government is a lot more than originally believed, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said Wednesday.

"The subset of individuals whose fingerprints have been stolen has increased from a total of approximately 1.1 million to approximately 5.6 million," according to a statement OPM.

The OPM and the Defense Department have been analyzing the attack since April 2015 when it noticed the intrusion into its system that occurred last December.

The U.S. estimates 21.5 million current and former federal employees had their Social Security numbers stolen, and other sensitive information.

The OPM said the total number of victims has not increased and notification letters will be sent to victims.

"Federal experts believe that, as of now, the ability to misuse fingerprint data is limited," the statement read, noting that the intelligence community will continue to work on preventing such a misuse.

Unnamed U.S. officials have told several media outlets that China is behind the cyberattack but the government has not officially made the claim.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest acknowledged the claims Wednesday but refused to lay blame. "I don't have any conclusions to share publicly about who may or may not have been responsible," he said.

The OPM statement was released just ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington later this week.