Life

SC: ‘We’ve Been Hacked! Be On Alert!’

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Last Updated on December 9, 2019

South Carolinians got delightful news on Friday: hackers in a foreign country, thus far an unspecified country, managed to break into the state’s Department of Revenue computers and make off will millions of social security numbers and other critical personal information. In some cases, credit card numbers were also stolen.

Anyone who has paid taxes during the past 14 years, state government advises, should be on alert. Just in case.

Approximately 77% of South Carolinians have been affected. If those, the majority were protected by strong encryption protocols matching credit card industry standards, DOR officials claim. But that’s little consolation to some 16,000 users whose card numbers were unencrypted and exposed.

The timetable of the breach is most disturbing.

DOR officials say they learned of the breach on October 10th. Six days later, investigators spotted two attempts to probe the system from early September and then later learned a previous attempt had been made back on August 27th.

It took them sixteen days — more than two weeks — to notify the public that the personal information had been compromised. The chief of the State Law Enforcement Division told reporters Friday that it took a while to figure out exactly how much data had been compromised.

“It was important that we had the time to work through our investigation so that we would have enough evidence to prosecute this person,” Keel said.

But in those sixteen days, one can only wonder how many fraudulent charges or credit applications might have been processed. And assuming that none occurred, there’s the even bigger fear that because social security numbers are involved, the damage could take months, if not years, to happen.

Gov. Nikki Haley said she knows where the hacking originated, but wouldn’t say because she didn’t want to compromise the investigation. She said she wants the hacker “slammed against the wall” and vowed that no taxpayer should be a victim to this.

“We will take care of them,” she said.

If, by “taking care of them,” she means providing a toll-free number where people can call for an authorization code for credit card protection, there’s already reason to be concerned about how well we’ll be taken care of.

That toll-free number, which anyone who has paid taxes in South Carolina since 1998 is encouraged to call, is 1-866-578-5422. The number goes to the state’s Department of Revenue, which has been given authorization codes for anyone to then use at Experian to get a year of free credit monitoring. (The 866 area code is one of the newer toll-free number prefixes introduced in the past several years since the traditional 800 numbers have been running in short supply.)

That number has been continually busy. You don’t get the traditional busy signal, but that fast busy signal indicating that the circuits were overloaded. When you actually do get through, you get a recording stating that they’re experiencing a “higher than normal” call volume. You aren’t given the option to stay on hold anyway: the recording instructs you to call back later. Yet another round of wrestling with busy signal buzzers.

To add insult to injury: the state hotline closed at 9pm Friday night and won’t open until 11am on Saturday. Really? Business hours? Given the seriousness of the breach, it’s time for 24-hour staffing, at least until the majority of people can actually get a call through. If it’s as serious as they say, serious enough to prompt an urgent press conference on Friday, then it’s certainly important enough to get the people the information they need.

Here, from Columbia’s newspaper, The State, is more consumer information about options for handling leaked personal information.

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.