Response to the Office of Personnel Management Data Breaches: A Conceptual Exploration

The existing literature has been silent on individuals’ decision making and reactions in response to data breaches. In 2015, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) discovered that data of several million Federal employee was stolen in cyber-attacks. Within the context of the OPM breaches, we propose a conceptual model that helps reveal the core decision making process of incident victims in responding to the OPM breach. We also explore the key decision factors including data breach fatigue. Expected findings of study will explain the individual differences in post-breach actions. Further, the study may offer directions to the practitioners and policy makers in conceiving tactics and strategies that promote data breach protections in the aftermath of data breach incidents despite challenges such as fatigue. This research has been funded by NSF under grant 1554373 and grant 1554480. The usual disclaimer applies