What the heck is going on in South Carolina?
First we find out last week that an "international hacker" got into the SC Department of Revenue and managed to get his or her hands on 3.6 million tax returns going all the way back to 1998. It is being called "the largest cyber-attack against a state tax department in the nation’s history." The Secret Service called it one of the largest the agency had handled.
"This is not a good day for South Carolina," said Governor Nikki Haley last week regarding the attack. Haley is known for encouraging state workers to answer the phone with "It's a great day in South Carolina." Whoops.
Of the breached data, a ton of unencrypted Social Security numbers and 387,000 credit and debit card numbers. The state will pay up to $12 million to Experian to enroll South Carolina taxpayers in a free year of credit monitoring service.
Earlier this year, a former Department of Health and Human Services project manager was arrested for stealing the personal information of 228,000 Medicaid patients in the state. Gov. Haley said the Medicaid issue and the hacker were two "totally different situations" since the hacker was, well, a hacker and the Medicaid thing was an internal control issue.
And now this week we find out state police are investigating a "discrepancy" in South Carolina Education Lottery administrative accounts and one person has been fired. There have been no arrests yet.
Ouch. Can someone check in with the South Carolina Board of Accountancy and make sure at least the CPA exam scores are safe?! WHEW never mind, they are a NASBA state. Thank goodness.
