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3.6 million Social Security numbers hacked in S.C.
[The State] The U.S. Secret Service detected a security breach at the S.C. Department of Revenue on Oct. 10, but it took state officials 10 days to close the attackers access and another six days to inform the public that 3.6 million Social Security numbers had been compromised.The attack also exposed 387,000 credit and debit card numbers. The stolen data included other information people file with their tax returns such as names and addresses. Businesses taxpayer identification numbers also potentially have been comprised in the attack that is being described as one of the nations largest against a state agency. The attack affects tax returns as far back as 1998, the Revenue Department said. But not all of the departments data so not every taxpayer was affected, it said. Most of the data had not been encrypted, meaning the hacker would not need a key to a secret code to read the stolen data. Revenue director James Etter said none of the Social Security numbers were encrypted and about 16,000 credit card numbers were not encrypted. That was not part of the system at that point, Etter said during Gov. Nikki Haleys press conference Friday to announce the breach. Thats something well be looking into. Officials, including State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel, said the millions of affected S.C. taxpayers had not been notified sooner because agents needed to reach certain benchmarks in their investigation. Keel said it took time to determine how much data had been compromised. And investigators needed time to gather evidence that could lead to prosecution. It is not known how the security breach has affected taxpayers and whether or how the hacker might have used the data. Posted by: Fred 2012-10-28 |
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