Maryland Department of Labor suffered data breach compromising PII of 78000 customers

• The customer information stored on the Literacy Works Information System and a legacy unemployment insurance service database were accessed by an unauthorized third party.
• The agency is providing two-years of free credit monitoring services for all impacted customers.

The Maryland Department of Labor (Maryland DoL) suffered a data breach compromising the sensitive information of almost 78000 customers including their Social Security Numbers.

What happened?

The customer information stored on the Literacy Works Information System and a legacy unemployment insurance service database were accessed by an unauthorized third party.

However, there has been no evidence that any personally identifiable information was downloaded or extracted from the compromised servers.

What information was compromised?

• The files stored in the Literacy Works Information system were from 2009, 2010, and 2014. These files included names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, city or county of residence, graduation dates, and record numbers.
• The files stored in the legacy unemployment insurance service database were from 2013 and included names and Social Security numbers.

What actions were taken?

• Upon discovery, Maryland's Department of Information Technology (Maryland DoIT) conducted an internal investigation on the data breach.
• An independent security expert and law enforcement agencies were contacted after the initial internal investigation.
• The department implemented countermeasures to avoid such incidents from happening in the future.
• The agency is providing two-years of free credit monitoring services for all impacted customers.

“We live in an age of highly sophisticated information security threats. We are committed to doing all we can to protect our customers and their information,” James E. Rzepkowski, Acting Labor Secretary said in an interview.