Russian Cyber Gang’s Global Hack Exposes Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicles Records

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – Louisianans whose personal information was exposed in a massive data breach that affected the state`s Office of Motor Vehicles last month, will receive one year of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection, Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Friday.

The resources are being offered in response to a Russian cyber-extortion gang’s global hack of a file-transfer program popular with corporations and governments. Among agencies that had their data breached were Louisiana’s Office of Motor Vehicles, Oregon’s Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Nova Scotia provincial government, British Airways, the British Broadcasting Company and the U.K. drugstore chain Boots.

State officials warned that anyone with a Louisiana driver’s license, ID or car registration – roughly 6 million Office of Motor Vehicle records – had their personal information exposed, which includes names, birthdates, addresses, social security numbers, height, eye color, license numbers and car registration.

Officials urged Louisiana residents to implement protective measures against the breach – most notably freezing and monitoring credit.

For more information on the free security services visit nextsteps.la.gov or call (866) 861-8717.