The attack by Chinese hackers on the Office of Personnel Management could make federal employees victims of tax fraud, one U.S. senator warned Thursday.

Senator Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.), making comments at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee meeting, added fuel to concerns that the financial vulnerabilities of the 22 million current and former federal workers could become worse before they get better.

A credit monitoring website set up for the 4.2 million workers and retirees who had their personnel files stolen has had numerous crashes, said Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican.

Tony Scott, the chief information officer at the Office of Management and Budget, cautioned that the Chinese thieves had the ability to change information on the purloined records.

In the wake of the attacks, the Office of Personnel Management’s director, Katherine Archuleta, said she is going to ask Congress for more money for cybersecurity.

But committee chair Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) said the problem is weak management, not a lack of funds.

He said private companies are implementing cybersecurity improvements better and cheaper than the federal government.

Both Johnson and OPM Inspector General Patrick McFarland criticized Archuleta for a cybersecurity record of failure and said she is not up to the task of accomplishing the needed fixes.

Archuleta said her agency needs to dramatically accelerate cybersecurity efforts, but McFarland said the agency needs instead to slow down “to get it right the first time.”

Scott, of the OMB, said the federal government has made a mistake by spending most of its cybersecurity money on prevention.

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