The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is warning thousands of current and former employees that their sensitive personal information was breached, leading to an unspecified number of fraudulent loan applications at a credit union.
According to a report by the Washington Post, the FDIC has written to around 6000 people telling them to be extra vigilant in monitoring financial accounts and credit reports over the next 12 to 24 months.
The data that may have been accessed includes names, birth dates, social security numbers and salary information on staff employed at the agency since July 2002.
Specific details of the security breach, which occured early last year, were not disclosed, but the FDIC did state that it was not the result of a computer security failure.
According to the report, the FDIC says in a "small number of cases" the data was used to obtain fraudulent loans from an un-named credit union.
But Colleen Kelley, president of the union that represents FDIC employees, told Associated Press reporters that at least 28 cases of identity theft were known to have occurred as a result of the breach, including loans fraudulently obtained from a federal employees' credit union.
According to press reports, an estimated one million federal employees have had their financial data lost or stolen in the past six months, including some senators. A Senate committee is currently considring the introduction of national ID protection legislation. So far California is the only state where companies are required to notify people when personal data is exposed.