US agency says it was alerted to breach by contractor CGI Federal

A projection of cyber code on a hooded man is pictured in this illustration picture taken on May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration

(Reuters) - The U.S. Government Accountability Office said Monday that CGI Federal, an IT contractor and unit of CGI Inc, notified the agency of a data breach last month affecting about 6,000 current and former GAO employees.

The GAO, a research arm of Congress, said in a statement the data involved personally identifiable information on employees including some people who worked there from 2007 to 2017.