TEXAS — Hundreds of thousands of Texans may have had their data compromised. On Friday, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) said they found unusual activity in their crash records system, tracing it to a single compromised account.


What You Need To Know

  • Personal information was found in the breach, including names, addresses, driver’s license numbers and car insurance policy details for 300,000 crash reports

  • In a statement TxDOT says that while they are not legally required to notify victims, they are reaching out saying in part, “TxDOT has taken proactive steps to inform the public by sending letters to notify the impacted individuals whose information was included in the crash reports”

  • The data breach comes just after Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 150 into law, creating a statewide cybersecurity department

Personal information was found in the breach, including names, addresses, driver’s license numbers and car insurance policy details for 300,000 crash reports. In a statement TxDOT says that while they are not legally required to notify victims, they are reaching out saying in part, “TxDOT has taken proactive steps to inform the public by sending letters to notify the impacted individuals whose information was included in the crash reports.”

Spectrum News recently reported login credentials for 180 million people were found in a data breach.

The City of McKinney also announced they’d been the target of a data breach that affected thousands of North Texas residents back in February.

Cybersecurity experts say that most breaches come through collaboration channels like texts or emails.

Damien Fortune is the CEO of SENTRIQS, which specializes in ultra secure collaboration software for government agencies, corporations and other industries. Fortune said that cyberattacks are becoming all too common and more advanced every day.

“We’ve come a long way,” Fortune said. “These guys can use ChatGPT and put out really convincing stuff. So it’s, it’s even harder for folks that maybe aren’t as tech savvy to spot the differences between the scams and the legitimate emails.”

The data breach comes just after Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 150 into law, creating a statewide cybersecurity department. According to Abbott, the mission is to prevent and protect against cyber breaches.

“Working together with the Texas Cyber Command, Texas will be on the path to be a national leader in cybersecurity,” Abbott said.

TxDOT is implementing additional security measures for accounts to help prevent similar incidents in the future and is asking those affected to call their dedicated help line at 1-833-918-5951.