Breach, Data Security

FBI alerts Ohio company of breach involving Social Security numbers

The FBI alerted Ohio-based State Industrial Products that the personal information – including Social Security numbers – of an undisclosed number of current and former employees may be at risk.

How many victims? Undisclosed. A State Industrial Products representative told SCMagazine.com on Thursday that it is too soon in the investigation to speculate. The State Industrial Products LinkedIn website lists the company as having between 501 and 1,000 employees.  

What type of personal information? Names, addresses, email addresses, Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, genders, dates of birth, phone numbers, employee IDs, and dates of hire.

What happened? The FBI alerted State Industrial Products that an unauthorized party gained access to the information. Due to an ongoing investigation, no more details have been made available at this time.

What was the response? Upon learning of the incident, State Industrial Products immediately hired a computer security firm and launched an investigation. All employees on the list provided by the FBI are being notified and are being offered one free year of identity theft protection services.

Details: The FBI alerted State Industrial Products of the incident on Jan. 23. The FBI provided State Industrial Products with a list of impacted employees and the information that was stolen.

Quote: “It appears that the list is being used by unauthorized persons for the purpose of filing fake tax returns,” Seth Uhrman, CEO of State Industrial Products, wrote in the letter to impacted employees, adding his information was also compromised. “We are working with the FBI and the IRS to take steps to prevent this from occurring.”

Source: atg.state.vt.us, “State Industrial letter to Consumers re Security Breach,” Jan. 27, 2014.

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