South Carolina governor seeks to calm taxpayers after security breach

[Zorro]

Source: Reuters

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley sought on Monday to temper the anger and frustration of state taxpayers left wondering if their personal information was compromised by recent cyber attacks on computers belonging to the Department of Revenue.

Some residents also questioned whether state officials took too long to disclose that as many as 3.6 million Social Security numbers and 387,000 credit and debit card numbers may have been exposed to a foreign hacker in the security breach.

State police said on Friday that they had begun an investigation earlier this month into a series of computer system breaches that occurred since August, with officials adding they did not know how much personal information was obtained by the hacker.

"This wasn't an issue where anyone in state government could have done something to avoid it," Haley said. "This is a situation where a sophisticated, intelligent individual got into a database and is unbelievably creative in how he did it, and now we're having to deal with it."

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/29/us-usa-cybersecurity-southcarolina-idUSBRE89S13T20121029

[CitizenPatriot]

1. sorry but my go to response in any situation involving republicans

is now going to be: WHAT? Why did you cover up Libya, er, I mean what's with the cover up? How come you don't know who did it? Why are you leaking security??? Impeach!

[Zorro]

3. Good line of attack

Governor, if you've known about the situation since the beginning of the month, why didn't you inform your constituents about this weeks ago? What are you trying to cover up?

The citizens of South Carolina should demand an investigation into this matter by her political rivals.

[CitizenPatriot]

8. Let's waste millions in an investigation based on

an email we have but didn't read. And while we're at it let's out all of the Republican allies like their superpacs and the corporations behind them. I mean, what good is taxpayer money if we can't make our opponents feel chaos and burn their allies?

[alp227]

11. IOKIYAR?

[valerief]

2. "We offshored the processing to Pakistan and made sure the data was as secure as possible.

What more could we do?"

[TexasTowelie]

5. Wrong country.

Nikki Haley is of Indian descent. She might as well get some kickbacks from that outsourcing of government jobs.

[jsr]

10. Yep.

[valerief]

21. I was just being sarcastic in using Pakistan. nt

[donnasgirl]

4. oh come on guys

This couldn't happen to a repug govenor (LOL) so much for open and honest republican govenors.

[JimDandy]

6. And we're voting on rinky-dink electronic voting machines.

[bemildred]

7. What an incompetent hack:

"This wasn't an issue where anyone in state government could have done something to avoid it"

Bullshit.

[CitizenPatriot]

9. They marvel at a hacker

but can't quite get that we couldn't prevent a n act of terror in Libya. Small minds.

[bemildred]

13. I'm referring to the Governor, not the perps.

I know, I'm dating myself (and no, I don't mean going to the movies.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_hack

[alp227]

12. Probably dismissing scrutiny so that Haley can focus on her 2016 vice presidential campaign.

[bemildred]

14. The buck always stops somewhere else, unlike our President.

They just rake in the money, take the credit, and assume responsibility for nothing. This goes beyond mere incompetence.

[merrily]

15. 911 was impossible for Rethugs to prevent. So is computer hacking in SC.

I blame Obama for Hurricane Sandy, though.

(Don't laugh. We haven't heard from nutcake Pat Robertson yet on why God sent us a hurricane 1000 miles wide.)

[Carolina]

16. I live in SC and let me tell y'all

even repukes hate that woman.

Also the breach is HUGE. There are only ~4 million people in the entire state, so 3.6 million affected means nearly EVERYONE. And guess when the public is notified: last FRIDAY (10/26) afternoon!

[SouthernLiberal]

19. I'm in SC and in IT

"This wasn't an issue where anyone in state government could have done something to avoid it" is just not true. It is as simple as that. Not partially true, not sort of true. 100% untrue. Anyone could have predicted that it would be tried. After all, it had been tried before in many places, including here in SC. Anyone who inquired about how the information could have been protected, would have been told about many layers of security that could have been added, including encryption.

I encrypt my financial data, even though I am not as likely to be a target, since all they'd get would be one person's data.

Oh, and Hi! neighbor.

[Carolina]

20. hi back, but

I think you meant to respond to some other poster: "bemildred," perhaps.

Your response to my post, inclusive of a quotation that is not atttributable to me, is a complete non-sequitor.

[Paulie]

17. Data not encrypted in the database?

Let me guess now: Simple SQL injection attack.

[Brigid]

18. This should get Haley booted out of office next time she's up for re-election.

Right?