Inside the Cyberattack That Shocked the U.S. Government

The US OFFICE of Personnel Management doesn’t radiate much glamour. As the human resources department for the federal government, the agency oversees the legal minutiae of how federal employees are hired and promoted and manages benefits and pensions for millions of current and retired civil servants. The core of its own workforce, numbering well over 5,000, is headquartered in a hulking Washington, DC, building, the interior of which has all the charm of an East German hospital circa 1963. It’s the sort of place where paper forms still get filled out in triplicate.