Two local governments are the latest in Texas to fall victim to digital breaches.
Wichita County, home to Wichita Falls, suffered a network outage last month and issued a warning about exposed resident information.
County Judge Jim Johnson told Nexstar Media Group there was a “disruption in the computer network” as early as May 7, and the county went offline for several days. The incident isn’t yet listed on the state’s reporting website.
County commissioners responded with a vote to spend $26,000 to buy a Fortinet FortiGate program, as reported by the Wichita Falls Times Record News.
The county’s online statement lists the incident as “unauthorized access” to the network resulting in exposed protected personal information. The county remains in a review process.
There are about 130,180 residents in the county.
The city of Edinburg also suffered a data breach with a potential 1,279 people in Texas impacted, it reported May 14.
Details published on the state’s data security breach reports page showed that personally identifiable information was compromised, including names, Social Security numbers, government ID numbers and dates of birth.
The city has about 105,799 residents and is in Hidalgo County; additional information on the breach wasn’t available at the time of publication.
Two Local Governments Suffer Cyber Breaches
A North Texas county and a South Texas city have reported incidents in which legally protected personal information was compromised.
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