Data breach in WilCo may have exposed close to 4K residents' info
WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas - The Texas Attorney General's Office said 3,763 people may have had their personal information exposed in a Williamson County data breach.
The county said that information may include names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, driver's license numbers, passports, payment account information, and more.
"That type of information can often be used against you for financial fraud, social engineering attacks," said Luke Barnes, a managing partner at Fidelis Risk Advisory. "They know that these organizations are under-protected, it just makes them easy targets."
County officials said an unauthorized actor got access to an email account in the 277th district court in November 2022.
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They said they are alerting residents now after wrapping up an investigation and identifying who may be the victims.
Barnes said data breaches like this aren't totally uncommon.
"They’re increasing, and like I mentioned earlier, because these institutions and organizations have so much personal data, financial data, tax data, attackers will target them," said Barnes.
People impacted should consider freezing credit, informing banking institutions about the breach, alerting insurance providers, and consulting a free online identity theft monitoring service.
"Just stay generally alert for suspicious activity with your accounts," said Barnes.
For anyone else in the clear, it's not a bad idea to take a few precautionary steps.
Barnes said to be cognizant of the type of information you post on social media, click only on trusted websites, use complex and unique passwords, enable multi-factor authentication, and regularly update digital devices.
"Cyber hygiene is important whether we’ve been in a breach or not," said Barnes.
The county said it will be mailing individuals who may have been impacted by the breach.
Williamson County told FOX 7 Austin it is not conducting interviews about the breach at this time, and they are referring people to their website where it has a notice posted.