China is the “leading suspect” in recent cyber breaches at the US government’s human resources arm that affected millions of current and former federal employees, James Clapper, director of national intelligence, said on Thursday.
The comments made Mr Clapper the first US government official to blame China publicly for breaches at the Office of Personnel Management, which has files on employees working at nearly every federal agency.
OPM disclosed the first breach, which exposed personal identification information for at least 4m people, about two weeks ago. A larger breach, only discovered through a probe of the first hack, compromised background investigation data for federal employees and contractors who need security clearances.