Office of the Illinois Secretary of State reports data breach impacting 50k
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The Illinois Secretary of State’s office has alerted residents about a data breach that impacted the agency.
The breach occurred in early April 2024 and involved unauthorized access to the Lake County government's computer system. This breach was then used to send out a phishing email to employees within the Secretary of State's office.
The office's Department of Information Technology and cybersecurity teams responded within hours to contain and mitigate the phishing incident. The email accounts of two Illinois Secretary of State employees were compromised.
It was confirmed that no agency databases, including those containing driver and vehicle records, were accessed.
The exposed data includes:
- Names
- Driver’s license numbers
- Social Security numbers
Letters were sent to approximately 50,000 Illinois residents informing them of the incident.
In response to the breach, the Secretary of State’s office has offered free credit monitoring to the affected individuals and engaged third-party cybersecurity experts to conduct a forensic audit.
