Illinois agency compromised in phishing campaign targeting employees

SPRINGFIELD — An agency of the State of Illinois was the target of a phishing campaign earlier this year, according to a media release made available Friday.

The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) alerted the media of the incident, pursuant to required mandates set in the Illinois Personal Information Act (815 ILCS 530/12).

HFS was made aware that a bad actor was conducting a phishing campaign to target HFS employees, attempting to gain access to their usernames and passwords. The incident occurred on or around February 11.

The bad actor sent emails to HFS employees from another government email account that the perpetrator had previously hacked, making the emails appear trustworthy to employees. As a result, the emails and documents of one HFS employee were compromised.

Immediately upon discovery, HFS worked with the Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) to block the link contained in the email and reset any employee’s password that might have been compromised.

All HFS employees were made aware of the active threat, reminding them about appropriate actions to take or not take when presented with requests for their state credentials.

Likely impacted information from the phishing incident

The information compromised differed for each individual impacted, but that information could have included personal identifiable information (PII), such as customer names, Social Security numbers, driver’s license or state ID card numbers, financial information related to child support, child support or Medicaid identification and case numbers, and date of birth.

There are 933 total individuals impacted as a result of this incident, of which 564 are current Illinois residents. HFS finished the process of notifying the impacted clients on May 23.

Resolution for potentially affected individuals

Potentially affected individuals with questions about this event can be referred to [email protected]. They can also reach out to the consumer reporting agencies to place a free fraud alert or security freeze on their accounts, or the Federal Trade Commission to find out more about fraud alerts, credit freezes, and other identity theft resources.

Equifax PO Box 105788 Atlanta, GA 30349 (888) 766-0008	Experian PO Box 9554 Allen, TX 75013 (888) 397-3742
TransUnion PO Box 2000 Chester, PA 19016 (800) 680-7289	Federal Trade Commission 600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20580 Consumer Help: (877) 382-4357 Identity Theft: (877) 438-4338

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