Just one day after a report that a Chinese-affiliated online attack had seized sensitive information about literally every federal employee from the Office of Personnel Management, another bomb drops: these same hackers also grabbed classified security clearance applications, filled with deeply private data.

The document in question is known as Standard Form 86, an exhaustive 127-page questionnaire that demands disclosures of everything from romantic partners and roommates to illegal drug history and criminal records. It’s the sort of thing that could ruin a life, to say nothing of make it easy to steal an identity—and could put the lives of countless spies and people close to them at risk.

From the AP report:

The officials said they believe the hack into the security clearance database was separate from the breach of federal personnel data announced last week — a breach that is itself appearing far worse than first believed. It could not be learned whether the security database breach happened when an OPM contractor was hacked in 2013, an attack that was discovered last year. Members of Congress received classified briefings about that breach in September, but there was no mention of security clearance information being exposed.

The OPM had no immediate comment Friday.

Nearly all of the millions of security clearance holders, including CIA, National Security Agency and military special operations personnel, are potentially exposed in the security clearance breach, the officials said. More than 2.9 million people had been investigated for a security clearance as of October 2014, according to government records.

Emphasis added. You can read a sample SF86 form below:

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7