WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, issued the following statement on the resignation of Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Katherine Archuleta. Yesterday, Senator Cardin introduced legislation, S. 1746, the RECOVER Act (Reducing the Effects of the Cyberattack on OPM Victims Emergency Response Act of 2015), to better protect federal employees, contractors and all those impacted by the two recent data breaches that affected close to 25 million individuals:

“The OPM data breach exposed the vulnerability of federal computer systems and put at risk the sensitive personal information of close to 25 million current and former federal employees, contractors, references and family members. As we slowly learned how massive this cyberattack really was, it became abundantly clear that OPM was woefully vulnerable and its leadership unprepared to protect the men and women of the federal government who work on behalf of our country. Katherine Archuleta never had an easy job. The sheer scope of the attacks on OPM would have overwhelmed any director – but the attack never should have happened and it should have been detected much earlier. I urge the President to nominate a capable replacement OPM director swiftly so there can be an immediate restoration of the infrastructure and the trust in this agency that is critically important to entire federal workforce. The OPM data breaches point to the obvious need for an immediate, broad review of federal IT infrastructure and what resources may be required to better secure this nationwide system.”

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