Posted On May 19, 2022 Consumer Privacy & Data Breaches
May 18, 2022 – Texas Department of Insurance (“TDI”) reported a data breach after the company was targeted in a recent cybersecurity attack. As a result of the breach, names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, part or all of Social Security numbers, along with workers’ compensation information of certain individuals may have been compromised. The Texas Department of Insurance data breach is believed to have impacted as many as 1.8 million individuals. On March 24, 2022, Texas Department of Insurance sent out data breach letters to those individuals whose information was affected by the breach.
The data breach lawyers at Console & Associates, P.C. are going to begin interviewing victims of the breach to determine what damages they sustained and what legal claims may be available to them. If you recently received a NOTICE OF DATA BREACH from Texas Department of Insurance, contact us at (866) 778-5500 to discuss your legal options, or submit a confidential contact form, for a free case evaluation.
Below is a portion of the notice that Texas Department of Insurance posted to their website:
TDI is notifying people whose workers’ compensation claim information may have been affected by a recent data security event. We are providing credit monitoring and identity theft protection services for 12 months at no cost to those who may have been affected.
We take this event and the security of the information in our care seriously. When we became aware of the issue, we immediately took the application offline, quickly fixed the issue, and started an investigation to determine the nature and scope of the event.
TDI also worked with a forensics company to search the web for evidence of misuse of the information and no evidence has been found to date.
What happened?
On January 4, 2022, we became aware of a security issue with a TDI web application that manages workers’ compensation information.
We temporarily disconnected the web application from the internet.
We found the issue was due to programming code that allowed internet access to a protected area of the application.
We fixed the programming code issue and put the TDI web application back online.
We began an investigation to find the nature and scope of the issue. This included:
Finding out whose information was or may have been viewed by people outside of TDI.
Searching the web for evidence of misuse of the information. To date, we have not identified evidence of misuse.
What information was involved?
The types of information that may have been accessible include names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, part or all of Social Security numbers, and information about injuries and workers’ compensation claims.
What we are doing.
We are working with a forensic company to investigate the nature and scope of the event.
We are reviewing and enhancing our policies, procedures, and security efforts.
We are offering 12 months of credit monitoring and identity protection services at no cost to those who may be affected. These services include fraud consultation and identity theft restoration.
We sent a letter to people who had a new workers’ compensation claim between March 2019 and January 2022 and who may have been affected by the event. The letter includes instructions for enrolling in credit monitoring services at no cost to them.
People who did not receive a letter but have had a workers’ compensation claim since 2006 may still qualify for credit monitoring. They can find out more information by calling 855-248-7100, 7 a.m. – 8 p.m. Central time, Monday to Friday, except U.S. holidays.
What you can do.
If your workers’ compensation information was on the web application, you may qualify for credit monitoring and identity theft protection services. We are covering the costs of these services for 12 months.
You can find out if your information was on the application by calling 855-248-7100, 7 a.m. – 8 p.m. Central time, Monday to Friday, except U.S. holidays. You will need to provide your name and the address you used at the time of your workers’ compensation claim.
We also encourage you to stay alert for errors, suspicious activity, and identity theft and fraud by reviewing your account statements and monitoring your free credit report. To learn more, read the “Credit monitoring and guidance” section below.
