The Office of the Washington State Auditor suffered a data breach exposing personal data of 1.6 million unemployment claims.
The Office of the Washington State Auditor suffered a data breach exposing personal data of 1.6 million unemployment claims.
The breach involved third-party software Accellion, used by the Auditor’s Office to transmit files.
“During the week of January 25, 2021, Accellion confirmed that an unauthorized person gained access to SAO files by exploiting a vulnerability in Accellion's file transfer service," the SAO said in a statement.
The potentially affected include people who filed for unemployment benefits between January 1 and December 10, 2020.
According to the online statement, the SAO data files contained personal data of Washington state residents who filed unemployment insurance claims in 2020.
In addition to unemployment claims, the breach exposed files from some oWashington local governments and other state agencies were also affected.
The exposed information includes
- Full name
- Driver’s license
- Social security number
- State identification number
- Bank account number and bank routing number
- Place of employment
“I want to be clear: This was an attack on a third-party service provider," said McCarthy. "The Employment Security Department did nothing to cause this, and is not responsible in any way for this incident.”
SAO reported working with state cybersecurity officials, law enforcement, the Employment Security Department, the Department of Children Youth and Families and legal counsel.
McCarthy added that the Auditor’s Office stopped using Accellion’s services from December 32, for reasons unrelated to the attack.
For the latest cyber threats and the latest hacking news please follow us on Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter.
You may be interested in reading: How to Survive the COVID Time Cyber Security Threats?