Oregon DMV data breach concerns 3.5 million people
The identities of approximately 3.5 million Oregonians are at risk after a data breach of the Oregon Department of Transportation left personal files compromised, the agency said Thursday. The Oregon DMV data breach has affected millions, and there is still uncertainty about how it happened or what bad actors can obtain people's stolen information.
According to the Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services, when the company was hacked two weeks ago, an estimated 3.5 million driver's licenses and identity card credentials were made public.
On Wednesday, The Oregonian/OregonLive made initial inquiries about the security compromise; it took DMV officials nearly a day to provide replies. The Agency's spokesperson Michelle Godfrey stated that the agency wanted to hold off on going public until Friday because officials are still training agency staff on how to respond to inquiries and worries from Oregonians about how to protect themselves.
To prepare staff for incoming queries, the agency intended to go public on Friday, four days after they verified the breach. Before going public, ODOT Chief Information Officer Thomas Amato said they needed to be certain of what had occurred.
Related: Do you know which data breaches you have fallen victim to?
Millions of people who have driver's licenses and ID cards had their "sensitive personal information" hacked, the agency claimed. Amato declined to go into specifics about the kinds of data that were accessed by hackers.
“Good forensic work does take time, and even on June 12, we’re still talking about preponderance of evidence, enough for us to say there is that we can confirm and actually believe this event is one that’s confirmed and that we are very confident saying happened. Between that time and today [Thursday], we’ve been trying to put in place, things to prepare Oregonians for this announcement and to do that the right way so we didn’t give too much evidence to the actual threat actors who could use verification of their attack as leverage," Amato said in his statement.
What to do if the Oregon DMV data breach includes your information too?
When you obtain your credit reports, look for any transactions or accounts that you do not recognize. If you notice anything in your credit report that you don't understand or looks off to you, call the number listed there, or visit the Federal Trade Commission's Web page on identity theft for further details. Additionally, you might wish to ask the three credit monitoring firms to freeze your credit reports.
Related: 237,000 US government employees affected by data breach
You can call the customer service hotlines for Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion at 1-888-397-3742, 1-800-685-1111, and experian.com/help, respectively.
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