Charleston County suffers data breach impacting more than 800 employees

• The incident occurred due to human error.
• The county’s sheriff office was notified of the issue on August 6, 2019.

A data breach at Charleston County has impacted over 800 current and former employees. The incident occurred due to human error.

What happened?

The data of 824 employees were compromised after a Human Resources employee accidentally shared a list to a former employee. The list included personal data related to former and current employees. The county’s sheriff office was notified of the issue on August 6, 2019.

After this, the county began alerting the affected employees about the matter. The county has also alerted the three major US credit reporting agencies about the data breach.

What information was compromised?

The breach exposed employees’ personal information including:

• Names
• Dates of birth
• Social Security numbers
• Gender
• Salary
• Hire dates
• Whether they were eligible for retiree health care
• Whether they are an active or inactive employee

However, no bank account information has been compromised in the breach, said Jennifer Miller, County’s Administrator, The Post and Courier reported. It is unclear why or how the information was sent through HR to a former employee.

Worth noting

As a part of precautionary measures, the county would offer a free year of credit monitoring service through Equifax or TransUnion. Employees have also urged to file a report with the Federal Trade Commission.