Some people are blaming Office of Personnel Management (OPM),
which serves as a sort of human resources department for the federal
government, some are saying unchangeable
biometrics and others are blaming Chinese hackers behind the massive breach in U.S of the
OPM’s servers during which fingerprints of 5.6 million people were stolen.
No matter, what was the reason but the tension is about
those millions people whose fingerprints have been stolen. What would be the consequence? Or there is nothing to worry about?
The authority concerned
needs to come up with some program to address the issue.
Now, the U.S. officials have blamed Chinese government
hackers without any evidence. China has also denied to have any involvement in
the breach.
The OPM has said that the federal experts believe there is
low chance of fingerprints being misused. However, there is a possibility that future
technologies could take advantage of this information.
The OPM had earlier confirmed that the number of people was
1.1 million only. However, the number has now increased to 5.6 million.
“The fact that the number [of fingerprints breached] just
increased by a factor of five is pretty mind-boggling,” Joseph Lorenzo Hall,
the chief technologist at the Center for Democracy & Technology, told Boing
Boing. “I’m surprised they didn't have structures in place to determine the
number of fingerprints compromised earlier during the investigation.”
Not only the fingerprints, it is said that about 21.5
million individuals had their Social Security Numbers and other sensitive
information affected by the hack.
As per the OPM, now, Department of Homeland Security and Defense
Department representatives are planning to review the implications of the
stolen fingerprint data.