The abrupt shutdown of the nation’s beleaguered security clearance system will further hamper a program that has been beset by all sorts of problems over the past few years, creating a significant backlog and potentially even disrupting key government operations, industry officials say.
The Office of Personnel Management announced Monday that it was taking the Web-based system used for background investigations offline after a “vulnerability” was discovered. That move followed the massive cyberattacks on the agency, potentially exposing the security clearance database and the personnel files of at least 4.2 million current and former federal employees.
