Contractor data incident may have exposed information about some Washington workers

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L&I Newsroom

Contractor data incident may have exposed information about some Washington workers

Workers are being notified and offered free credit monitoring

July 1, 2021 #21-017

TUMWATER — The Washington state Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) was recently notified that one of its contractors, Pacific Market Research (PMR), was the victim of a ransomware attack on its data systems.

During that incident, data on some of PMR’s servers was encrypted by an unauthorized party. PMR’s system contained one document that listed contact information, claim numbers and dates of birth for 16,466 workers who had workers’ compensation claims in 2019, which PMR had used to conduct a customer service survey on behalf of L&I.

This incident did not involve L&I’s computer systems in any way.

Based on an independent forensic investigation, PMR does not believe the document was accessed or taken in the May 22 incident, but cannot be 100 percent certain.

The document did not contain medical information, social security numbers, bank or credit card information, or other personal information.

Out of an abundance of caution, L&I and PMR are notifying the workers by mail and offering 12 months of free credit monitoring.

Although L&I account numbers for employers are public information, L&I is also notifying the workers’ 9,400 employers whose L&I account numbers were also included in the document. Both mailings should start arriving today.

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For media information: Rich Roesler, L&I Public Affairs, 360-628-3034. 
L&I Newsroom (https://lni.wa.gov/news-events).
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