Dallas County: Data of 200,000 exposed in 2023 ransomware attack

Dallas County disclosed that the Play ransomware gang breached its systems in October 2023 and published stolen data affecting 201,404 individuals; exposed information includes full names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, driver’s license/state ID numbers, taxpayer IDs, medical and health insurance information. The county has notified impacted parties, is providing two years of credit monitoring where SSNs/taxpayer IDs were exposed, set up a call center, and implemented mitigations such as deploying EDR on servers, forcing password resets, and blocking malicious IPs; the report also notes prior incidents (a $2.4M BEC fraud and a Royal ransomware breach) illustrating ongoing local cybersecurity issues.