Fellow employees, we were recently notified of a data breach that may impact state employees.
The Washington State Auditor’s Office, a separately elected official, informed us about a security incident involving a third-party software service vendor the SAO was using. The incident, which occurred last month, may have exposed the personal and financial information of about 1.6 million Washingtonians who filed unemployment claims in 2020. This includes many state employees. To be clear, this was not the result of any actions of anyone at the Employment Security Department. It was a third-party vendor that was working for the State Auditor. It does not make the impact any less important, but it is important to note this is not the result of any actions or inactions at ESD.
We are awaiting further details from the Auditor’s Office on the extent of the data breach and the information compromised, but wanted to share the latest information we have right now. We will keep you informed as we learn more about this situation.
Employees whose information may have been compromised will be notified directly by the State Auditor’s Office. The Office of Financial Management and SAO are both setting up websites to help ensure employees are apprised of any new developments and available resources. Both are expected to go live today. OFM site will be ofm.wa.gov/saodatabreach. The SAO site will be sao.wa.gov/breach2021. There will also be a SAO call center set up later this week for employees to get assistance and resources with these issues, we will make sure you have it as soon as it is available.
We know this is not good news and we plan to help SAO and help you, in any manner possible. While you patiently await contact from SAO regarding your personal risk, please do not contact the Employment Security Department. They are not responsible for this problem and are not the appropriate place to troubleshoot issues that arise from it.
We will be looking to our HR and payroll staff and using DAAG to keep you up to date on any related process changes or recommended actions. We know you are eager to get this taken care of, as are we.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
The Executive Team at Shoreline
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