The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services recently suffered a data security breach that exposed the personal information for roughly 2,500 clients.
The breach occurred because an employee at the agency's Department for Community Based Services inadvertently provided information to a hacker who sent a phishing email, according to a report from the
CHFS. However, within just 30 minutes of the incident, there had been unauthorized activity on the account in question, and it was disabled. While it's unlikely, some potential victims who were part of the National Youth Transition database, who were in the process of aging out of foster care or had already done so, might be affected.
"In all likelihood, the hacker intended to access the state government e-mail server to send spam e-mails and did not access or view client information," said Rodney Murphy, executive director of the Office of Administrative and Technology Services.
Ondrej Krehel, the chief information security officer for
Identity Theft 911, writes about how consumers can spot phishing emails and avoid falling victim to them.
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