HHSC Fires Employees for November Data Breach

The personal identifying information of more than 61,000 Texans may have been compromised in a data breach, and some of the state’s most vulnerable residents are at highest risk.

On Friday the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) publicly notified the public about an incident that it learned about Nov. 21, 2024. Then, the HHSC learned that, allegedly, employees from within its own office improperly accessed the information of 61,104 Texans who receive public assistance including Medicaid and food stamps.

“HHSC took immediate steps to mitigate the breach by terminating the employees involved and referring the incident to the Texas Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) for investigation and coordination with prosecutor offices to pursue criminal charges,” it said in a statement.

Specifically, the 61,104 Texans whose accounts may have been compromised either applied for or received state assistance between June 2021 and December 2024. The HHSC will notify those affected and offer them two years of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services.

This isn’t the first break of trust from within the HHSC. The Texas Tribune reports that earlier in the year, an employee said she illegally possessed the information of 3,392 Texans. Plus, two other employees were found to have allegedly stolen $270,000 from around 500 food stamp accounts. The HHSC fired all seven employees accused in the various incidents.

The Tribune reports that HHSC has fraud investigation tools in place, but they’re focused on investigating threats from the outside. In fact, just a few weeks ago the state awarded a $170.9 million contract to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to provide cybersecurity services to help protect state networks.

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