The Abject Failure of Federal InfoSec

### Executive Summary The article details major failures in federal information security highlighted by the OPM breach—where attackers (believed linked to China) exfiltrated personnel and background-check records for over 4 million individuals—and by the IRS "Get Transcript" abuse that allowed attackers to access taxpayer filing data for roughly 100k–200k accounts; it criticizes outdated infrastructure, weak controls, contractor risks, and delayed implementation of fraud-detection practices across agencies.