Sarah Mirando  |  November 6, 2012

Category: Legal News

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SCDOR Hack Class Action Lawsuit Seeks $1,000 per Taxpayer

By Mike Holter

 

South Carolina Department of RevenueFormer Sen. John Hawkins is spearheading a class action lawsuit against South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and the SCDOR for allowing foreign hackers to break into the state’s Revenue Department and steal millions of taxpayer Social Security numbers and tens of thousands of credit and debit card numbers.

“The public is forced with the threat of jail to pay taxes and give their personal information to SCDOR, yet SCDOR took only the flimsiest steps to protect this private data, leaving South Carolina the most vulnerable target for hackers of any state of in the Union,” said Hawkins.

Officials found out about the SCDOR data breach on October 10, and investigators uncovered three previous attempts to hack into the system in August and September.

Haley, the State Law Enforcement Division, and the Revenue Department did not reveal the hack to the public until October 26.

The class action lawsuit is seeking $1,000 a piece for every taxpayer affected by the SCDOR hack and is accusing Haley and the DOR of violating state law by not doing enough to protect taxpayers’ information and waiting too long to tell the public they were victims.

The law firm handling the class action lawsuit added two new defendants to the case yesterday after an investigation revealed the DOR had access to free network monitoring through the state’s Internet technology department, but chose to use a third-party vendor instead. The new defendants are private corporation Trustwave and the Department of State Information Technology (DSIT).

The class action lawsuit contends Trustwave failed to protect public data and failed to notify the public immediately as required by state statute.

In addition to millions of tax payers’ information being compromised, an estimated 657,000 businesses’ records were also taken during the security breach.

A new website set up by Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corporation (www.dandb.com/SC) has been set up to allow businesses to sign up for credit protection. Dun & Bradstreet is offering its services for free. Businesses that register will have credit monitoring for the life of the business.

Private citizens are encouraged to sign up for credit monitoring and protection as soon as possible.

 

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Updated November 6th, 2012

 

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3 thoughts onSCDOR Hack Class Action Lawsuit Seeks $1,000 per Taxpayer

  1. # 1 Kevin says:

    I was just informed that my information and my family’s info as well has been compromised. Today is 02/01/13 and I’m just now getting this information!! Why wasn’t I informed sooner? Why did I not receive a notice from SCDOR about this issue instead of an email from Experian?

  2. banks says:

    i was just informed my ss# bank account info and credit card info was compromised. and to make it even better my kids ss# too. how could this happen and why did it take till january 28th to notify me.

  3. seth says:

    i was just informed yesterday 1/10/13 that my information had been compromised.how do i get involved with the class action suit?

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