U.S. personnel chief resigns in light of massive data breach

U.S. personnel chief
(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

Katherine Archuleta, head of the White House's Office of Personnel Management, resigned Friday, one day after announcing that the personal information of 21.5 million government background check applicants had been hacked, a White House official told The New York Times. Archuleta has faced calls for her resignation since June, when a related cyber-attack compromised the data of 4.2 million current and former federal workers, including their Social Security numbers.

She personally resigned to President Barack Obama because she felt the agency needed a new leader to “move beyond the current challenges," the official said.

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Julie Kliegman

Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.