Hack of Federal Employee Info Has Comstock Looking for Answers

Despite not serving on the committee, Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) was given a special dispensation to sit in on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee meeting earlier this week as the committee discussed the recent potential hack into the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) as well as the Internal Revenue Service’s taxpayer data, according to the Washington Post.

Comstock, a McLean resident, was given special permission as someone who not only may have been a victim of the hacks herself, but as a Representative of Virginia’s 10th District who serves many other federal employees out of the Northern Virginia area.

“I’ve received those same letters as have, more importantly, tens of thousands of my constituents,” Comstock told the Post, referring to a notification from the OPM stating her private data may have been hacked. “I also had the unfortunate experience of getting a letter from the IRS saying that my tax information had been compromised.”

Comstock and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told Politico last week they’d been hacked by presumed Chinese hackers earlier in the month. Comstock then wrote the OPM demanding answers for the security breach, according to Politico.

“I and many of my constituents have already been sent letters alerting us to this breach of our personal information that has been ‘compromised,’” Comstock wrote, according to Politico. “As you know, these cyberthieves stole personal data such as Social Security numbers, as well as background investigations on federal employees, contractors, and applicants.”

Comstock has since told the Post she’s not concerned about the breach into her own privacy, citing an identity protection service as another tool protecting her personal information, but that she is concerned for her constituents. She expressed her concerns with an online OPM program that offers credit monitoring, identity theft insurance and other security measures to federal employees.

“I have not done that because I don’t have confidence yet and don’t know enough to have that confidence,” Comstock said in the Post. “So it makes it difficult for me to tell my constituents (what to do).”

When given the chance to speak near the end of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee meeting, Comstock reportedly grilled OPM director Katherine Archuleta regarding the recent breach, asserting the OPM lacks a “culture of leadership.”

She asked Archuleta if she’d visited private companies to study their cybersecurity practices, citing Visa’s data processing center in her district as a successful method of online security. Archuleta noted she had not done so but noted there was a plan in the works “in the near future.”

After the meeting, Comstock remained critical of OPM leaders. “These aren’t the people I want to have in battle,” she told the Post after the hearing.

Fellow Northern Virginia Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), another Congressman who represents a wealth of federal employees, actually defended the OPM, according to the Post. Connolly said he felt it was too easy to blame the OPM in the immediate aftermath of the breach when Congress did not do enough to prevent these types of cyberattacks before the fact.

Comstock agreed Congress needs to put more resources into cybersecurity.

“Identity theft, especially by a potential foreign entity, is a very serious national security issue that touches many of my constituents’ lives,” Comstock told Politico. “Serious security measures to avoid these lapses need to be crafted and put in place in advance of the next attack.”

However, Comstock also remained adamant that proper leadership was needed to help fix these security flaws.

“We have to make sure that we have the adequate resources,” she told the Post, “but that they are led by the right people.”