Katherine Archuleta, who was the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), resigned Friday less than 24 hours after telling reporters that she had no intention of leaving.
This comes on the heels of the second of two major breaches to OPM’s systems over the span of just over a month. The number of federal employees affected by the breaches has reached over 25 million in total.
Her resignation is exactly what the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee called for after the first breach that a congressional hearing found was caused by Archuleta ignoring the warnings of Inspector General Michael Esser.
“I'm pleased to hear OPM Director Archuleta has resigned from her post. It was long overdue,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC). “Under Director Archuleta’s oversight, OPM failed to implement even the most basic cyber-security protocols, including encrypting sensitive information.”
“I warned back in June that there would be much more to come and sure enough, yesterday we learned that more than 21.5 million individuals were affected,” Rep. Meadows added.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think we will truly understand the magnitude of this security breach for years to come.”