Cybersecurity incidents in the federal government have skyrocketed by more than 1,000 percent in recent years, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.
The report — submitted as testimony by Greg Wilshusen, director of information security issues at GAO, in a recent congressional hearing — shows that in fiscal year 2014, federal agencies experienced 67,168 cybersecurity incidents involving personally identifiable information. The number of incidents has increased every year since fiscal year 2006, when that number was just 5,503. That’s an upsurge of 1,121 percent in just nine years.
Wilshusen’s testimony and research came as the result of a House Committee on Science, Space and Technology’s Subcommittee on Research and Technology probe into two Office of Personnel Management breaches that have put the personal information of 22.1 million federal employees and others connected to them in background security clearance investigations at risk. The subcommittee was eager to learn whether the two headline attacks could be the tip of a cyber-incident iceberg.
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