Data Breech
The WA state auditor has announced a data breech that could have exposed 1.6 million Washingtonian’s personal information. If you applied for unemployment between Jan 1 and Dec 10 last year, then your info may have been exposed.
![](https://fmechamber.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Stockton-Flowery-18.jpg)
The ESD struggled with fraud during the pandemic. This breech is in addition to the nearly 400,000 people whose stolen identities in the spring. Those identities were used to file $600 million in fraudulent claims, and about $357 million was recovered. (According to Seattle Times, December 2020.) However, the ESD was not responsible for this latest breech. State Auditor Pat McCarthy said, “I want to be clear: This was an attack on a third-party service provider. The Employment Security Department did nothing to cause this, and is not responsible in any way for this incident.”
The state auditor has a webpage where you can learn more about the data breech.