County begins notifying individuals of data breach
The Plumas County Counsel’s office and the Information Technology Department released a statement yesterday regarding a recent data breach that was uncovered March 23. This is a continuation of the impacts from the ransomware attack that impacted the county late last fall.
At least one elected official reports that his Social Security number was compromised. More information will be provided as it becomes available.
“Plumas County announced today that it is mailing notification letters to individuals whose information may have been involved in a data security incident, which disrupted the operations of the IT systems within the County’s computer network.
“On March 23, 2022, through the County’s ongoing analysis, the County determined that personal information belonging to certain County affiliates was contained in documents that were involved in the incident. The County first learned of the incident when it experienced technical issues with its IT systems.
“In response, the County immediately took steps to secure its systems, launched an investigation, and notified law enforcement. The investigation determined that an unauthorized party accessed the County’s systems, and that they acquired or viewed some files from those systems.
“After identifying the files that were acquired or viewed, the County then conducted a comprehensive and time-intensive review of the data within those files to identify the information they contained. The County continues working diligently to identify all individuals whose information was involved in the incident and will begin notifying those individuals on or around April 8, 2022.
“The County takes this incident very seriously and sincerely regrets any concern this may cause. To help prevent something like this from happening again, the County has implemented additional safeguards and technical security measures to further protect and monitor its systems.”
