The Illinois Secretary of State’s office is warning Illinois residents of a recent data breach that supposedly started in Lake County, media is reporting.
Letters went out last week to roughly 50,000 Illinois residents about a “data security incident” that took place in early April, NBC 5 Chicago reported on their website.
The letter states an unknown person obtained access to the Lake County government’s computer system and sent out a phishing e-mail to employees, NBC 5 reported.
The letter states potentially names, driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers were potentially exposed.
Statescoop.com said Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said his technology office “acted within hours” to contain the cyberattack.
“The Secretary of State’s office takes these issues extremely seriously and has engaged multiple third-party cyber security experts to conduct a forensic audit to ascertain the origin of the unauthorized access, strengthen its data security framework against future attacks and implement additional security measures and oversight,” the statement to statescoop.com reads.
The office is offering free credit monitoring subscriptions to anyone who may have been affected, Statescoop reported.