A cyberattack on federal security clearance contractor USIS, was unnoticed for months before it was revealed by the company and government agencies earlier this year. 

Officials and others familiar with an FBI investigation and related official inquiries told that the breach, similar to previous hacker intrusions from China and cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars in lost government contracts. In addition to trying to identify the perpetrators and evaluate the scale of the stolen material, the government inquiries have prompted concerns about why computer detection alarms inside the company failed to quickly notice the hackers.