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The Florida Department of Economic Opportunities (DEO) has warned that hackers may have stolen the personal information of tens of thousands of residents seeking or receiving unemployment benefits.
The DEO disclosed the security incident Friday in messages it sent to claimants who had accounts in the department’s online Recruitment Assistance Requests and Benefits Information System, also known as CONNECT.
“The Department has discovered that malicious actors were targeting plaintiff accounts through the CONNECT public plaintiff portal,” the department said in response to an investigation by the Washington Times on Saturday.
A total of 57,920 plaintiff accounts were targeted between April 27, when the DEO became aware of the incident, and July 16, the department said in an emailed statement.
Information contained in the target accounts “could have been accessed,” possibly including social security numbers, driver’s license number, bank account numbers, contact details and more, the DEO said.
Sensitive data, such as those contained in targeted accounts, can be used by criminals to commit identity theft and other crimes.
It was unclear how successful the hackers were in stealing any of this sensitive data. The DEO said “the targeted accounts may have been accessed by an unauthorized party,” but did not specify more.
“There is no other evidence of unauthorized access and no indication of related malicious activity on the Department’s internal networks,” it said in an email.
The DEO said it locked the targeted accounts after learning of the incident and improving security controls. It also said it notified several other government departments and three credit reporting agencies and paid for a one-year subscription to identity protection services for affected claimants.
“As states continue to combat significant attacks on unemployment systems nationwide, preventing fraud remains the Department’s top priority,” the DEO told The Times. Florida is a leader in detecting and preventing unemployment fraud, and we will continue to take steps to protect Florida residents.”
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