Dallas County says 2023 data security incident impacted over 200,000 people

The Dallas County in the U.S. state of Texas said that the data security incident it suffered last year compromised the sensitive personal information of more than 200,000 individuals.

 

In a data breach notice filed with the Office of Maine Attorney General, Dallas county said that on October 19, 2023, it experienced a data security incident that affected portions of its internal network.

 

The county immediately launched an investigation, with assistance from external cyber security experts, to determine the nature and scope of the incident. It also took steps to contain the incident and notified law enforcement about the same.

 

“The County recently completed its investigation and determined that your information may be involved,” the County said, adding that it has “established a dedicated call centre for individuals to call should they have any questions relating to the incident.”

 

It said the compromised data included names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, driver’s licence/state identification numbers, taxpayer identification numbers, medical information including diagnosis or conditions information and health insurance information.

 

The County’s filing with the Maine state regulator revealed that at least 201,404 individuals were impacted by the data security incident.

 

“Upon becoming aware of the incident, the County promptly initiated measures to secure its information. This included an extensive deployment of an Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tool across servers and endpoints connected to our network, forcing password changes for all users to grant access to our systems, and blocking ingress and egress traffic to IP addresses identified as malicious, among others,” the county added.

 

Dallas county officials have advised all affected individuals to regularly monitor their credit reports, account and benefit statements and report any suspicious activity to law enforcement authorities, including the police and state attorney general.

 

It has also offered two years of complimentary identity protection and credit monitoring services through IDX to all affected individuals.