State tax data breach twice as large as originally thought

BOSTON (AP) — Officials with Massachusetts’ tax collection agency say a data breach that exposed private information from about 39,000 business taxpayers was twice as large as originally thought.

The Massachusetts Department of Revenue tells <a target=”&mdash;blank” href=”http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/02/21/that-data-breach-was-twice-large-department-revenue-said-last-week/Yc1y90wlq65BfnmZRwkPTP/story.html”>The Boston Globe</a> the information was viewable to other companies, potentially even competitors.

The error lasted from early August through Jan. 23 and allowed some companies to view other business’s names, tax identification numbers, amount and date of tax payments, number of employees and banking information about their payroll processor.

The agency says just one Social Security number was exposed.

The Department of Revenue reported what happened with that number, triggering a review by the state attorney general.

The state says the agency fixed the issue in January within hours of being made aware of it.

———

Information from: The Boston Globe, <a target=”&mdash;blank” href=”http://www.bostonglobe.com”>http://www.bostonglobe.com</a>

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

I agree to these terms.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.