LifeLock Blog

Culpepper, Virginia is a Washington, D.C. bedroom community, and a quiet little town with fewer than 10,000 residents. More than three-quarters of those townspeople are now at an elevated risk of identity theft because of a data breach.

A vendor who was hired to reformat Culpeper’s electronic property tax file inadvertently posted the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of 7,845 taxpayers on a compromised website. The information was discovered March 27, and removed March 30, according to town manager Jeff Muzzy.

The town notified its citizens of the data breach via a letter dated April 3. In it, Muzzy stated they don’t know of any fraudulent activity related to the exposure of taxpayers’ identifying information, but said the site where it was posted also contained other compromised confidential information. No details were given as to what other information was exposed.

The letter also offered affected citizens tips on how to protect their personal information, but made no mention of any plans to provide credit monitoring as is customary after a data breach.

The Government/Military sector was responsible for 110 of the 656 reported data breaches in 2008, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center.