mr. ozment? dr. ozment: i can't speak to whether any adversaries have gone after private sector -- >> others say they were hit by cyber attacks and other government contractors. now one that probably hit congress is one in 2013 where the f.b.i. warned that a group called anonymous hacked into the u.s. army department of energy department of health and human services and many agencies by exploiting a weakness in the adobe system. i have that in my office. they could have hacked into my office and probably every other congressional office. then they talk about going into healthcare. they go into the blue cross blue shield system of all the federal employees. it seems like they want a comprehensive package on certain millions of americans, many whom are serving our country, i would say at negotiating tables, commerce, state department probably defense and every other aspect of american life in the world economy. but mr. scott, you have been before this committee before, and you announced you were going t

mr. ozment? dr. ozment: i can't speak to whether any adversaries have gone after private sector -- >> others say they were hit by cyber attacks and other government contractors. now one that probably hit congress is one in 2013 where the f.b.i. warned that a group called anonymous hacked into the u.s. army department of energy, department of health and human services and many agencies by exploiting a weakness in the a-- the adobe system. i have that in my office. they could have hacked into my office and probably every other congressional office. then they talk about going into healthcare. they go into the blue cross, blue shield system of all the federal employees. it seems like they want a comprehensive package on certain million s of americans, many whom are serving our country, i would say at negotiating tables, commerce state department, probably defense and every other aspect of american life in the world economy. but mr. scott, you have been before this committee before, and you announced you w

mr. ozment or whoever else understands the i.t. systems when we did this in the private sector, we differentiated between someone who hacked into our system and someone who stole something from us because there are two levels of involvement and so have you been able to make the distinction between where the hackers were and had access of where things were exposed and where they possibly downloaded data? >> thank you, representative. that is an important distinction and one we spent a lot of our investigative time examining. for the personnel records the approximately 4.2 million records, the incident respond team led by dhs and the partners learned it was ex fill traited, meaning it was removed by the network by the adversary who took it and we are continuing to investigative the information. >> i appreciate you. i don't mean to cut you off. and i wish we had more time. and i heard about the data and it heard about the social security numbers and that might have been ex filt rated. and health data do we collect health data on our e

mr. ozment or whoever else who understands the i.t. systems. when we used to do this in the private sector we used to differentiate between someone who hacked into the system and someone who actually stole something from us. i guess my question swb have you be able yet to make the distinction between where the hackers were and they had access and things were exposed and where possibly they downloaded data? >> thank you, representative. that issen a important distinction and one that we spend a lot of our investigative time examining. for the personnel records, the approximately 4.2 million records, the incident response team led by dhs has concluded with the high probability that that data was exfill traited meaning it was removed from the network by the adversary who took it. we're continuing to investigate the information -- >> very briefly. i appreciate that. i don't mean to cut you off. let me ask this one question. i heard mr. lynch ask about the social security numbers. health data. why -- do we collect health data on our employees? ms. a

mr. ozment from homeland security,

mr. ozment from homeland security, would you character size this as a large scale cyber spying effort?hat's what it sounds like to me. what is it? dr. ozment: i think to speak to who were the this is a spying effort, we would have to talk to any understanding of who the adversaries were and what their intent was. >> you do believe it was a

ozment: sir, i think that's better discussed in a classified setting. >> i yield back the balance of my time. mr. chairman: i think we all understand how seriously we take this situation. to those federal employees that are affected, one of the things that should come out in the letter, the very end of the record to receive one of these letters, we should note, the office of personnel management is not going to call you to provide additional information. there will be some very bad actors that will try to take advantage of this bad situation and exploit it for their own personal gain. they have already done that. they are going to do it again. there are going to be others that will try to do that to a lot of our federal employees. please do not fall victim to someone who will send you an e-mail or make a call and try to prey on you later. it was noted in the letter, and it is worth noting again from the pulpit. we have to hustle to the 1:00 meeting. the committee now stands adjourned. thank you. >> a house hearing from you. what should the government do about the o.p.m. breach? if you would like