South Carolina Department of Revenue

The Department of Revenue is a department of the South Carolina state government responsible for the administration of 32 taxes.

The Department is responsible for licensing and taxing all manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of alcoholic liquors. The Department is also responsible for enforcing the Bingo Act of 1996 which affects manufacturers, distributors, organizations and promoters. Coin-operated device tax is collected from all manufactures, distributors or owners of such devices or machines. Owners of such machines must also be licensed.[1]

Website can be found at dor.sc.gov

Tax records theft

Beginning August 13, 2012, an unidentified remote attacker compromised systems at the Department of Revenue. The attacker initially penetrated the system using phishing emails to employees. The attacker then installed a backdoor. Over the next two months after the system was compromised, the attacker remotely compiled and uploaded data such as employee password hashes and the tax records dating from 1998 to 2011. On October 10, the United States Secret Service notified the SC Department of Revenue of a possible breach. [2] The attacker then completed activities on October 17, 2012 after having compromised a total of 44 systems.[3]

As of early 2013, this is the largest ever cyberattack on a US state government, with 3.8 million unencrypted Social Security numbers (equivalent to over 78.6% of the SC population) stolen along with private and business-related financial information.[4] South Carolina contracted with outside agency Experian to provide South Carolina residents and other affected individuals with a year of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection.[5] With the help of Governor Nikki Haley, Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp was able to provide assistance by offering their CreditAlerts product, free of charge, to all companies doing business in South Carolina. [6]


References

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