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The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing the breach, detected in April at the Office of Personnel Management. The agency essentially functions as the federal government’s human resources department, managing background checks, pension payments and job training across dozens of federal agencies. Investigators suspect that hackers based in China are responsible for the attack, though the probe is continuing, according to people familiar with the matter. On Thursday, several U.S. officials described the breach as among the largest known thefts of government data in history.

Please see below for an additional comment, this time from Tom Court, cyber crime researcher, Alert Logic:

"Attacks against high profile targets such as this require the adversary to possess the means, a motive and be given an opportunity to strike. In this case the attacker was a group of skilled hackers who had previously demonstrated they had the means by launching a similar attack against the same target in March last year. The motive is clear and should be a red flag to all organisations that hold large amounts of personal data. This information is fast becoming a currency that cyber criminals trade in and should be treated with the same degree of care as financial data. A large organisation with potential IT and security budget constraints presents an opportunity to would-be attackers. Nevertheless, once additional expertise was brought in, the breach was quickly discovered and remediated. This underlines the importance of continuous network monitoring to uncover anomalies before they become headlines."