Cyber Attack on The Washington State Department of Licensing, WA

According to sources, The Washington State Department of Licensing (a Government organization in Washington) was hit with a cyber attack. It was first reported on 2022-02-06.

Washington state data breach may have exposed personal details of licensed professionals

“-"The Washington State Department of Licensing said the personal information of potentially millions of licensed professionals may have been exposed after it detected suspicious activity on its online licensing system." -"hut down its online platform temporarily after learning of the activity in January...Data stored on the system, which is called POLARIS, could include Social Security numbers, birth dates and driver’s license numbers." -"The agency doesn’t yet know whether such data was actually accessed or how many individuals may have been affected," -"the agency has been working with the state Office of Cybersecurity, the state Attorney General’s Office and a third-party cybersecurity firm to understand the scope of the incident" “

Thieves got access to 650K individuals’ info on WA database

“• “Based on our investigation, (Department of Licensing) has sufficient reason to believe the Professional and Business Licensing System was accessed and records were acquired without authorization,” • “Agency officials had initially said that the breach might have exposed the data of at least the 257,000 individuals active licenses in the system, but acknowledged that the full number was likely larger. Friday’s estimate grew to 650,000 because it included individuals with non-active licenses, and also because a single business license can include information for multiple individuals, Olson said.” • “The agency will begin notifying individuals who were potentially affected by the breach and providing them with credit monitoring and identity theft protection.” “