Biggest Cyber Hack Ever Said To Loom In Student Loan Records

Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has warned that the Education Department is ripe for a massive cyber breach that would dwarf the 2015 attack on the Office of Personnel Management. “If you apply for a student loan,” he said in a speech at the Brookings Institution, “you are sending this information, not only about yourself, but about mom, about dad and all the investments, all the account numbers, all the assets that you have.” According to Chaffetz, the Department of Education has diffused information, including social security numbers, on upwards of a million student loan applicants and their parents to 120 different contractors. The Department’s security problems were cited in a recent review by its own inspector general, and now Chaffetz, who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has asked the Government Accountability Office to look into the matter.