The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday that a hacker broke into one of its databases during the first week of June and may have accessed personal records for up to 26,000 Washington, D.C.-based USDA employees, former employees and contractors, about one fourth of the department’s work force.

Yes, that’s right, another one.

IT workers discovered the breach on June 5, and notified Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns the next day.

An initial forensic review indicated that no personal information had been accessed, but after further investigation, staff were unable to be certain of this, prompting Wednesday’s notification.

The USDA will offer free credit-monitoring services for one year to each of the affected people, Johanns said, and will notify the people affected by e-mail and by postal mail.

Government auditors have given the USDA an “F” on its computer security for the past several years. This shouldn’t surprise anyone: The database containing the personal information is on the same system as another database wide open to the public.

Earlier this month the National Nuclear Security Agency revealed that personal data for 1,500 Albuquerque, N.M., employees was stolen, and in May, a laptop assigned to a Veterans Administration employee containing personal information for over 26 million active duty and discharged veterans was stolen from his home.

People who believe they may be affected by the data breach can go to http://www.firstgov.gov/ or call 1-800-FED-INFO (1-800-333-4636) for more information.

I really should just write up a template for this, so the next time a government agency gets hacked, I can just drop in the name of the agency, the name of the head honcho, and post it. After all, government computer security sucks. At this rate I could start a Hacked Government Agency of the Month Club and never lack for an incident.