Texas exposes addresses, SSNs of 3.5 million residents.
The state of Texas revealed April 11 that personal information for 3.5 million citizens has been exposed to the public, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and more. According to the Texas State Comptroller, the data was not exposed by a hacker or a group of vigilantes — it ended up on a state-controlled public server after having been passed around between various state agencies. The data came from the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, the Texas Workforce Commission, and the Employees Retirement System of Texas, all of whom transferred the unencrypted data (against state policy) between January and May of 2010. The information was discovered on the public server March 31, meaning it had been available for almost a year. So far, the state said there is no indication the data was misused, but that does not mean it has not or will not be sometime in the future. In addition to the aforementioned personal information, the comptroller said other data, such as date of birth and driver’s license numbers had been exposed "to varying degrees." Additionally, "all the numbers were embedded in a chain of numbers and not in separate fields."