Hillsborough County, FL is Among MOVEit File Breach Victims: More than 70k Impacted
Table of Contents
- By Steven
- Published: Jul 20, 2023
- Last Updated: Jul 21, 2023
Hillsborough County is a location in the middle of Florida, with a current population of approximately 1.4 million. The county is tasked with managing and protecting the information of a huge number of people, and it failed to do so recently. It was hit by a data breach that lost personal and medical information for thousands of people. The breach could result in several consequences, such as identity theft, financial loss, and long-term problems for some of these victims.
How Did the Attack Occur?
The Hillsborough County data breach occurred along with all the other MOVEit file transfer-related breaches. The county was relying on the service itself or was using a third-party company that used MOVEit for its file transfers. The data for county citizens were connected to MOVEit in some way, and that data was lost to the breaches. The attacks occurred in May and June for most of the MOVEit victims, and it's likely that the attacks impacting Hillsborough County, FL occurred in the same months.
What Information Was Viewed or Stolen?
Data for local residents could have been lost in the breach. Some of the information included may have been their first and last names, home addresses, Social Security numbers, disability code information, diagnoses, and medical conditions. All this information is highly personal and could also be harmful if taken by the wrong individual. The hackers that gathered this data will likely misuse it and cause the victims harm. It's unclear whether all the information listed above was taken for each of the different victims, but it's more likely that a blend of the data points were stolen and only some victims lost all the information detailed above.
How Did Hillsborough County Admit to the Breach?
The county is actively notifying any residents it believes are at risk of suffering from the data breach. If you receive a letter or a notice, you should know your information could have been compromised. The county contacted 70,636 individuals overall.
What Will Become of the Stolen Information?
The information that's being stolen in the MOVEit breaches is being used as leverage to demand ransom payments. It's likely the hackers will attempt to get a ransom from the county as well. If no ransom is paid, the data might be given away to other hackers, misused for various types of identity theft, or even lead to phishing attacks, and resold to other individuals looking to misuse the information. No matter how the data is used, it's likely to do harm to individuals that lose it.
What Should Affected Parties Do in the Aftermath of the Breach?
For those that receive a letter from the county, your first priority should immediately be to look at your credit history from all the agencies to see if any changes were made to your credit. You should also take the time to look at your financial accounts just to be safe. Once you've done those things, you should monitor your credit in the future to verify that nothing changes that should not.