3m impacted in Texas government department cyber attack

However, according to a statement by Texas Parks and Wildlife, Social Security numbers, birth dates and financial information such as credit card details were not impacted by the incident.

“Texas Cyber Command recently detected a cyber security incident involving the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) licence system vendor that handles the sale of hunting and fishing licences,” the statement read.

“The investigation indicates that an unauthorised actor may have obtained driver licence information, passport numbers (if provided), email addresses, phone numbers and residential addresses for more than 3 million Texas hunting and fishing licence customers.

“Social Security numbers, dates of birth and financial information, including credit card details were not obtained from this incident. There is no evidence that customers under the age of 18 were involved or that any specific group was targeted.”

The department said it is currently implementing new safeguards and monitoring services, and sales of hunting and fishing licences will remain active for August and the “next licence year”.

“We recognise the seriousness of this issue and have identified and implemented additional security options to better protect customer information. Many of our staff are hunters and anglers and were affected by this incident. We are committed to continuing to work with the licence system vendor to implement increased safeguards to prevent future incidents,” the statement said.

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Neither the attorney general nor the department named the threat actor nor did they provide any details of the attack vector.