Among state governments, South Carolina hacker attack was “the mother of all data breaches”
Hackers steal personal data from computer systems on a near-daily basis, but South Carolina’s Department of Revenue data breach stands out as one of the big ones.
“I’m not aware of any state tax department that’s been hacked to the extent of South Carolina’s,” said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.
Larry Ponemon, chairman of The Ponemon Institute, which researches privacy, data protection and information security policy, can’t recall a state government data breach as large as South Carolina’s.
“From a state point of view, this is kind of the mother of all data breaches, thus far,” Ponemon said.
But he believes other states are similarly vulnerable.
Hackers — people who infiltrate computer systems — are known to have breached 213 systems in the United States so far this year, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.
Read more in Wednesday’s editions of The Post and Courier. Follow David Slade on Twitter @DSladeNews.
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