City of Sheboygan breach leaves SSNs, IDs exposed

Attackers infiltrated the City of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, taking the personal details of tens of thousands of individuals.

The City contacted thousands of individuals, informing them about a data breach that was discovered during Halloween last year. While attackers infiltrated only a limited segment of Sheboygan’s systems, the ones they did enter contained personal user data, the breach notification said.

Sheboygan, Wisconsin, located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, has a metropolitan area of nearly 120,000 residents.

Third-party cybersecurity experts hired by the City conducted a review of the incident, concluding in mid-May this year that personal data was involved in the attack. The breach notification claims that malicious actors may have gotten their hands on:

• Names
• Dates of birth
• Social Security numbers
• License plate or vehicle ID numbers
• Drivers’ license or state ID numbers

Armed with this data, attackers could find multiple ways to exploit it. For example, they could aim for identity theft, financial fraud, and vehicle theft. Moreover, hackers could try to create fake documents and use them to open fraudulent accounts or impersonate individuals involved in the attack.

Information the City of Sheboygan submitted to the Maine Attorney General’s Office indicates nearly 68,000 individuals were impacted.

“To help prevent something like this from happening again, the City is implementing additional security measures. It is also offering complimentary identity protection services to those individuals whose Social Security numbers were affected by the incident,” reads the breach notification.