An Update on the OPM Cyber Breach

In the wake of the most recent data breach of Equifax, FLEOA has provided an update on the June 2015 Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data breach to include claims, lawsuits and legislation.

Below is a summary of each of these separate areas:

Claims

In May 2017, all individuals who had submitted claims with FLEOA concerning the OPM data breach were filed with OPM. This is currently ongoing and in the near future individuals who submitted claims should be contacted by OPM directly.

Lawsuits

This has been an ongoing battle. Initially, multiple federal lawsuits were filed by numerous federal employee unions such as American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).  As a result of the multiple lawsuits, the law firm of Girard Gibbs was named by a federal judge as the lead counsel for the class-action lawsuit. FLEOA has been in constant contact with the law firm of Girard Gibbs and had been continually provided updates on the initial class action lawsuit.

Unfortunately, on September 19, 2017, a federal Judge assigned the case ruled in favor of OPM and threw out the lawsuit against them for the data breach. As a result, the NTEU filed an appeal against the decision. Currently, the AFGE is reviewing the decision and will be deciding on whether to join the appeal. We, FLEOA, will be reaching out to NTEU and AFGE leadership in the near to immediate future in order to discuss and possibly assist in the appeal process.

Legislation

Federal legislation was passed by Congress allowing all federal (current, retired, & former) employees to apply for credit monitoring for up to ten years free of cost. For additional information in how to obtain free credit monitoring can be obtained from the following link: https://www.opm.gov/cybersecurity/