NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - A cybersecurity expert has been looking for signs that Louisianans’ personal information has been shared on the dark web after a massive breach and urges the public to take steps to protect their credit and government benefits. Meanwhile, an organization that works with senior citizens has taken steps to help them protect their personal information.
Demetrice Rogers has focused on cybersecurity for years and as an adjunct professor at Tulane University’s School of Professional Advancement, he gets to share his expertise.
He spoke to FOX 8 News about the global cyber-attack that is affecting Louisiana residents.
“It’s definitely one of the largest breaches that I’ve personally seen,” said Rogers.
The massive breach compromised more than 6 million Office of Motor Vehicle records in Louisiana, according to the head of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
Cyber-crooks recently attacked MOVEit.
Rogers explained what MOVEit is.
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“MoveIt is a managed file transfer software, so a lot of different organizations, whether it be government organizations or private organizations, utilize this third-party product,” he said.
It is believed that all Louisianans with state-issued driver’s licenses, state-issued ID cards or car registrations have likely had their sensitive personal information exposed.
Rogers explained how the suspected ransomware attack group operates on the “dark web”.
“They have a blog and they’re posting all this information, the different websites, the different companies that have been breached and they’re updating it every so often. So right now we haven’t seen that they’ve posted the information for download but that is usually expected as the next step, so they will start posting this information available for download,” he said.
Rogers thinks putting a freeze on one’s credit is imperative given the cyberattack.
“I would say the very first thing that should be done is to place a credit freeze on your credit file, so by visiting all three credit bureaus; you can do that online and placing that freeze so that nobody can open up any new accounts using your credit information,” he says.
The public is also urged to change their passwords.
“Any online account that you have. I would recommend going through them and changing the password. I happened to look at the dark web this morning and I saw several other financial institutions that were listed on that website,” said Rogers.
The breach raises concerns about seniors who may not be aware of the breach or how to protect their information.
Howard Rodgers is the executive director of the New Orleans Council on Aging.
“For some of our seniors that one check they get once a month is what they live on and if it disappears then we’re going to have a real big problem,” said Rodgers.
He said the agency took steps to inform the seniors it serves.
“Got with my staff this morning and we sent an email to all the centers and to all the individuals who subscribe to our email service to more or less notify them about this credit breach,” said Rodgers.
Demetrice Rogers agrees criminals could try to target Social Security benefits.
“For senior citizens, this could be particularly important because people could start applying for Social Security benefits using their information because they basically have everything that they would need to make that file,” said Rogers. “So, that’s actually another recommendation is to check the Social Security, with the Social Security benefits; make sure that nobody is applying for additional benefits and the same thing with the IRS, for people who haven’t filed their tax returns, make sure that you’re following up with the IRS as well.”
The state says it has updated the software with the patches the vendor has provided.
Rogers says hackers constantly work to breach systems.
“They are changing products and they are going after different products all of the time. This just happened to be a very large vulnerability with several organizations and businesses that utilize this particular piece of software,” he said.
And answering why ransomware crooks sometimes have the upper hand is not easy.
“So, that’s a tough question. These zero-day vulnerabilities are usually vulnerabilities in software that basically these attackers they spend months, weeks and years testing these different software for different vulnerabilities,” Rogers stated.
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