Newsroom

The U.S. Postal Service, whose inspector general office has proposed that the service consider offering consumer financial services, reported Monday that more than 800,000 of its employees could be affected by a data breach there and that some customers may also be affected.

According to a statement disclosing the incident, the breach may have compromised data such as employees' names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, beginning and end dates of employment, emergency contact information and other data. The statement said the intrusion also compromised call center data for customers who contacted the Postal Service Customer Care Center with an inquiry by phone or email between Jan. 1 and Aug. 16 of this year.

The breach was reportedly discovered in September. As with another recent breach reported at the White House, this one is thought to have come from a foreign government, reports said.

"Postal Service transactional revenue systems in Post Offices as well as on usps.com where customers pay for services with credit and debit cards have not been affected by this incident," according to a statement from David Partenheimer, USPS's media relations manager. "There is no evidence that any customer credit card information from retail or online purchases … was compromised."