The website of a major contractor for the Department of Homeland Security was hacked on Wednesday and reports said that information of U.S. government employees may have been compromised.

The company, United States Investigations Services or USIS, who does background checks for the DHS, said it had been the target of a "state-sponsored cyber-attack."

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After the hacking incident, DHS deferred all work with USIS until such time that the FBI has conducted an investigation.

USIS was not able to confirm the number of government officials that were affected by the security breach, but it believes that no one outside the DHS was affected.

According to Peter Boogaard, Homeland Security spokesman, DHS' forensic analysis concluded that some of its personnel may have been affected by the breach. 

"We are committed to ensuring our employees' privacy and are taking steps to protect it," Boogard said.

A similar incident occurred with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in March, but according to DHS officials, the recent attack was an isolated incident and not related to the OPM breach.

The March cyber attack was traced back to China and the incident didn't result in theft of personnel data, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

However, in the case of the DHS, it is believed that confidential information has been leaked that prompted the hacking, said a DHS senior administration official.

"The degree to which that information has been exfiltrated for other purposes is what we're trying to discern now," the administration official added.

All data that the DHS sends the USIS is highly encrypted, but officials said they are not certain whether the information remains encrypted once it enters the USIS database.

In a statement released to the Washington Post, USIS said it is now collaborating with OPM and the DHS to expedite the process in resolving the matter.

"We look forward to resuming service on all our contracts with them as soon as possible," the company said. 

TagsUSIS, homeland security, hacking, cyber crime