Jenn Strathman reports:
Cyber hackers from Turkey hacked into the city of Akron’s website and replaced city messages with politically-motivated ones on Thursday. Also, nearly 8,000 taxpayers had their personal information stolen including their names, addresses, and social security numbers.
I don’t know about you, but I would have lead with the theft of the social security numbers, not the political messages.
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But there’s more to the incident, it seems, as the data have reportedly been dumped and there may be many more than 8,000 affected. Ohio.com reports that individuals who filed Akron income tax returns electronically this year have been affected:
The city of Akron notified Friday some of the taxpayers whose personal information — possibly including Social Security numbers, credit card numbers and checking account numbers — was compromised in a cyber attack and posted on the Internet.
But only about half of the affected people have been notified because the city does not have email addresses for all of those affected, Akron’s Chief Information Officer Rick Schmahl said.
The number of affected residents is not known, although it could be between 10,000 and 40,000, Schmahl said. A news release the city issued at noon Friday said it was believed 8,000 names with related information were compromised.