OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA:
S.C. Department of Revenue Responds to Cyber Attack, Will Provide Credit Monitoring and Identity Theft Protection to Taxpayers
Hacker illegally obtained credit card and Social Security numbers

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina Department of Revenue today announced that approximately 3.6 million Social Security numbers and 387,000 credit and debit card numbers have been exposed in a cyber attack. Of the credit cards, the vast majority are protected by strong encryption deemed sufficient under the demanding credit card industry standards to protect the data and cardholders. Approximately 16,000 are unencrypted.
***Press kit attached with information regarding the chronology of the investigation and consumer safety solutions is attached.***

To protect taxpayers, the state will provide those affected with one year of credit monitoring and identity theft protection. Officials emphasized that no public funds were accessed or put at risk.

“On October 10, the S.C. Division of Information Technology informed the S.C. Department of Revenue of a potential cyber attack involving the personal information of taxpayers,” said DOR Director James Etter. “We worked with them throughout that day to determine what may have happened and what steps to take to address the situation. We also immediately began consultations with state and federal law enforcement agencies and briefed the governor’s office.”

Upon the recommendation of law enforcement officials, DOR contracted Mandiant, one of the world’s top information security companies, to assist in the investigation, help secure the system, install new equipment and software and institute tighter controls on access.

On October 16, investigators uncovered two attempts to probe the system in early September, and later learned that a previous attempt was made in late August. In mid-September, two other intrusions occurred, and to the best of the department’s knowledge, the hacker obtained data for the first time. No other intrusions have been uncovered at this time. On October 20, the vulnerability in the system was closed and, to the best of the department’s knowledge, secured.

“The number of records breached requires an unprecedented, large-scale response by the Department of Revenue, the State of South Carolina and all our citizens,” said Gov. Nikki Haley. “We are taking immediate steps to protect the taxpayers of South Carolina, including providing one year of credit monitoring and identity protection to those affected.”

Anyone who has filed a South Carolina tax return since 1998 is urged to visit protectmyid.com/scdor or call 1- 866-578-5422 to determine if their information is affected. If so, the taxpayer can immediately enroll in one year of identity protection service provided by Experian.

edit on 27-10-2012 by Gridrebel because: (no reason given)

Originally posted by Socrato
Thank you for posting this. I filed tax returns in SC from 2005-2011... Unfortunately that website does not lead me to anything useful, so I will have to call the number. The website in the article just goes to an Experian page asking for an activation code.

Originally posted by Biigs
Its not good, but no matter how good the protection, if a cyber criminal offers a bribe to an employee with access or at least behind some security, anything is possible.

3.6 million social security and nearly half a million credit card details, that would be worth some huge amount of money to bribe with.....

This is exactly why the cloud will never be better than what we have or any number of security levels, firewalls and so on.

Originally posted by Socrato

Originally posted by Biigs
Its not good, but no matter how good the protection, if a cyber criminal offers a bribe to an employee with access or at least behind some security, anything is possible.

3.6 million social security and nearly half a million credit card details, that would be worth some huge amount of money to bribe with.....

This is exactly why the cloud will never be better than what we have or any number of security levels, firewalls and so on.

You're 100% right about that. Especially when you are dealing with someone who got fired or quit.