The database held by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is filled with private information that could be considered a gold mine by hackers and identity thieves. This is probably the reason why hackers from all over the world, mainly China, target the computers of the South Carolina DMV each day.
DMV representatives state that just this year there were around 90 attempts to penetrate their defenses, but so far none of them has managed to do so,
WSPA reports.
“I think it's very important from a business perspective to look at us and say, 'Are we doing everything we can?' We will tell you that we are doing absolutely everything we can to protect the network, but the number of intrusion attempts continues to go up higher and higher,” J.R. Sanderson, director of operations at the DMV, said.
Because most of the attacks originate from other countries, the FBI has been contacted and they’re currently assisting the organization in making sure that the database is properly protected.
They need to upgrade some of their systems, the DMV’s director requesting funding from the senate, but since the institution doesn’t normally receive funds from the state budget, they may have to come up with other ways to obtain the necessary sums.
The DMV’s database contains information such as copies of birth certificates, Social Security numbers, physical addresses and much more, and according to
SecurityWeek, experts say that organizations that handle sensitive data shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that they’re targeted by such attacks.
“DMVs and other agencies that issue official identification will always be prime targets for attack. Their comment about having had around 90 intrusion attempts this year is very vague,” Josh Shaul, CTO at Application Security, explained.
“That sounds like a small number, but who knows what they count as an ‘attack’. The more interesting question for me is how do they know? Could there have been other attacks that they didn't detect and therefore didn't stop?”
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