Washington Dept. of Social and Health Services announces massive data breach
Washington's Department of Social and Health Services disclosed that a former employee accessed personal data belonging to roughly 8,600 people without authorization in March. The agency launched an internal investigation and is now notifying those whose information may have been compromised.
Why this matters: The people affected here are not random customers. They are people who turned to a government social services agency — often at a low point, often with no choice. That means the data is likely sensitive: health conditions, financial situations, family circumstances. The threat was not an outside hacker. It was someone already inside, with access. That is a harder problem to solve. It also means the agency had a responsibility to monitor what employees were doing with this data, and it apparently took months to surface. People who had no option but to share their information with this agency deserved better controls than that.
Who should care: Cybersecurity · Privacy officers · Administrators · Lawyers · Compliance · General readers · Policy
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