Hack Exposes Most South Carolinians' Social Security Numbers


State database infiltrated; 3.6 million citizens' unencrypted social security numbers are at risk.

It's deja vu all over again: yet another database full of personal information has been hacked and this time, more than three quarters of the residents of South Carolina were the victims.

South Carolina state officials announced Friday evening that the social security numbers of some 3.6 million state residents and 387,000 credit and debit card numbers were exposed in a data breach. The SSNs were stored unencrypted, and while most of the credit cards were encrypted, some 16,000 card numbers were not.

The state's IT department on October 10 alerted the South Carolina Department of Revenue (DOR) that there had been a possible hack that involved taxpayer information. The DOR contacted law enforcement and the governor's office, and then hired on Mandiant to handle the forensics investigation of the hack, secure it, and install new equipment and software, according to state officials.

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