On March 11, 2022, Contra Costa County completed an investigation regarding an incident of unauthorized access to certain County employee email accounts.
The County is notifying individuals whose personal information was in one of the email accounts and providing information about the incident and steps they can take.
The County immediately took action to secure the accounts and began an investigation upon first learning of the unauthorized access to the employee email accounts. The investigation determined that an unauthorized person accessed the accounts at various times between June 24, 2021, and August 12, 2021. The investigation did not determine whether any emails or attachments in the accounts were accessed or downloaded by the unauthorized individual; however, the County was not able to rule out the possibility.
In the review of the emails and attachments that could have been accessed or downloaded, the investigation determined that emails and attachments contained information pertaining to certain County employees, as well as individuals who communicated with the County’s Employment and Human Services Department. This information included names and one or more of the following: Social Security numbers; driver’s license or state-issued identification numbers; financial account numbers; passport numbers; and medical information and/or health insurance information. The County is offering complimentary credit monitoring to eligible individuals.
The County began mailing letters on April 15, 2022, to individuals whose information may have been involved in the incident and for whom it has address information. The County is also providing this notice via email and/or website and call center to individuals whose information may have been involved but for whom it does not have a mailing address.
The County has also set up a dedicated, toll-free call center for individuals to call with questions about this incident and is offering complimentary credit monitoring to eligible individuals. Individuals who have questions or those wishing to determine if their personal information was contained in one of the email accounts may call 1-855-604-1854, Monday through Friday between 6 AM to 6 PM Pacific Time. Additionally, the County’s website Homepage at www.contracosta.ca.gov contains information regarding steps that individuals can take to help protect their personal information.
7 months to do the investigation?
Then they waited another month to notify potential victims?
Am I reading this right?
One of the wonders of the internet. Why can’t they put this info on computers that are not on line?
Email doesn’t quite work the same when it’s offline. Just sayin’…
Your right!!
Transparency is good. The government doesn’t get to keep secrets. Wikileaks did nothing wrong.
Did the County terminate the employee or contractor?
The County fails again.
Now they tell everyone, almost a year later.
Inspires a lot of confidence, doesn’t it?
Karen must have postponed the announcement until she got top job.
I’m looking forward to a statement by the board.
But I’m not holding my breath.
Well…… I consider myself one of the bored, so here is my statement:
I really don’t care about any of this…. therefore I am confidently stating that :
“I couldn’t care less”.
I actually only commented now because I saw it as a good opportunity to give a correct example of that phrase “couldn’t care less” that so many people use improperly saying “I could care less” which actually implies that one does care to a certain extent and in fact “could” care less!
So…. I hope I’ve helped some of you to understand how to use that comment to express your apathy more concisely and perhaps added some interest to this very droll article about the county government’s incompetence…. and if I did not, I couldn’t care less.
Att. DR J : ” I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men.”
,,,so the County has a data breach, and the County has instruction them on what the folks MUST DO now? That sucks.
Although NOT as bad a a$$-ran Experian. They allow there clients data to be stolen (from Experian), and then run advertisements stating “you should really buy or ID theft package” , And charge $$$ for it?
Didn’t the CEO dump his stock prior to the public admission they screwed up? That’s messed up…
CoCoCo – I could care less ;.)