“Hacked by ALEX.CR & ESSEN” by Alexmiausea – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons –

The New  York Times reported on June 4th that the federal Office of Personnel Management database was hacked in late 2014,  exposing the personnel data, including social security numbers of millions of federal workers.   Read the article here.

If you are a federal employee, to protect you from identity theft, the article indicates you are eligible for 18 months of free credit check protection, but you have to opt in to get the service–you are not  automatically enrolled in it.