Betabeat » secret service

Hackers Steal Millions of Social Security Numbers From South Carolina Taxpayers

Steve Huff — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 15:39:01 -0400

Hackers were likely not ski-masked in this case.

Hackers from outside the United States recently penetrated the website for South Carolina's Department of Revenue and reportedly made off with 3.6 million Social Security numbers and 16,000 unencrypted credit and debit card numbers.

South Carolina has a population of approximately 4.5 million, meaning the compromised Social Security numbers could affect most of state.

South Carolina's governor held a press conference about the breach on Friday:

Gov. Nikki Haley said in a press conference Friday afternoon that the breech had been fixed and the State is working on an unprecendented (sic) plan to resolve the issue. She said a full investigation of all government agencies will be done to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Authorities first learned of the hack in early October but say evidence indicates it occurred in late August, 2012.

The Secret Service is the federal agency in charge of the investigation. They have been tight-lipped about the theft past acknowledging that it occurred.

South Carolina has set up a hotline regarding the hack. Authorities recommend anyone who has paid taxes to the state in the last 14 years call 1-866-578-5422.

Hacker Laptop Death Kit For When the Feds Show Up

Nitasha Tiku — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:24:36 -0400

Now that Secret Service is being tasked to crackdown on Apple store art-tech projects and the FBI is raiding the McKibbon lofts to try to find Anonymous, hackers better start building a panic button. Thankfully, someone's already thought of that. Oh yeah, and you're gonna need a drill. Randy Sarafan at Free Art & Technology (F.A.T.), which has one of the best initialisms ever, has put together what Animal New York is calling "a laptop suicide kit." So before the feds break down your door,' download a sticker that indicates exactly where to do major damage to your laptop harddrive and invest in some transparent adhesive full sheet labels. Then just keep a drill handy and wait.

Secret Service Can’t Stand Fox News

Ben Popper — Thu, 19 May 2011 09:23:16 -0400

One of our nation's top agents was assigned the task of watching. Trained to protect our nation's leaders and combat terrorists and assassins, he Tweeted the following,

The Secret Service has confirmed to The Washington Post that the tweet was real, and says the agent mistakenly thought he was on a personal account. Tweetdeck strikes again!