Hackers access most South Carolina Social Security numbers - Polidicks

[quote]The Social Security numbers of a majority South Carolina residents have been exposed in a cyber attack, along with 387,000 credit and debit card numbers, according to the S.C. Department of Revenue. The S.C. Department of Revenue announced Friday that approximately 3.6 million Social Security numbers have been exposed. Of the 387,000 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, according to the SCDR. But about 16,000 were unencrypted. 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 Oct. 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. The SCDR said that on Oct. 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 Saturday, 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 Governor 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. Experian’s ProtectMyID™ Alert is designed to detect, protect and resolve potential identity theft, and includes daily monitoring of all three credit bureaus. The alerts and daily monitoring services are provided for one year, and consumers will continue to have access to fraud resolution agents and services beyond the first year. [/quote] [url]http://www.wyff4.com/news/columbia-statewide-news/Hackers-access-most-SC-Social-Security-numbers/-/9324106/17148794/-/r6ubny/-/index.html[/url] if you live in South Carolina I'd recommend making sure you're not one of those people

I don't live in south carolina, but how would one go about fixing getting a fuckload of social security numbers leaked? Just buy a like identity protection thing or something like that? (I mean the websites that monitor credit and stuff). Seeing as far as I know you can't just go and get a new social security number...

Why would 16000 credit cards be unencrypted?

Well fuck.

Why is it the one time my state gets in the fucking news its for this. I don't even

[QUOTE=legolover122;38198894]I don't live in south carolina, but how would one go about fixing getting a fuckload of social security numbers leaked? Just buy a like identity protection thing or something like that? (I mean the websites that monitor credit and stuff). Seeing as far as I know you can't just go and get a new social security number...[/QUOTE] I don't know how it works or how they plan to do it, but yes, ideally, identity protection is supposed to work even under circumstances where your information is public knowledge. I remember at some point seeing advertising for some identity protection firm where the owner of the company supposedly put his own ssn on the commercials and on the signs to show his belief in the product. I imagine it's like paying for insurance, I assume they just cover your expenses in the event something like this happens. Like I said, I could be wrong though, this is one market I'm not familiar with so I don't know how/if the business works.

[QUOTE=J Paul;38199048]I don't know how it works or how they plan to do it, but yes, ideally, identity protection is supposed to work even under circumstances where your information is public knowledge. I remember at some point seeing advertising for some identity protection firm where the owner of the company supposedly put his own ssn on the commercials and on the signs to show his belief in the product. [/QUOTE] he was a victim of identity theft (or otherwise unauthorized access of credit) 3 times before a judge told him what he was doing was false advertising also that company got sued a lot

My SSI is from South Carolina, but i haven't lived there in 12 years.

[QUOTE=scout1;38199614]he was a victim of identity theft (or otherwise unauthorized access of credit) 3 times before a judge told him what he was doing was false advertising also that company got sued a lot[/QUOTE] That's awesome.

I saw this and my heart dropped. Thankfully, I haven't filed taxes here before.

god dammit

Well shit.

Good. Maybe now my debt collector will have some debt of her own.

[QUOTE=W00tbeer1;38198931]Why would 16000 credit cards be unencrypted?[/QUOTE] I don't know, why is it that someone who knows your Social Security number owns your god damned life? It's stupid shit.