The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has admitted that 5.6 million people are now estimated to have had their fingerprint information stolen—which could have a big impact on future biometric security initiatives. The federal government’s main employment body turns out to have significantly undershot its estimates as to how many people were affected by the breach that was uncovered in the summer. The number of people whose prints were lifted, so to speak, was originally thought to be about 1.1 million. Meanwhile, about 22.1 million individuals had their Social Security Numbers and other sensitive information affected by a pair of hacks—this number has not been revised. While the fingerprint heist shouldn’t be able to do much harm right now, the ramifications of the issue are likely to be far-ranging as far as cybercrime goes.
