House Committee To Ask Tough Questions on DOR Hack

On Thursday, a bi-partisan House committee will hold public hearings on the Department of Revenue (DOR) cyber security breach. The ten-member group will seek answers to questions about DOR and about the state’s response once the hack was discovered.

Last month, a Senate subcommittee held hearings and discovered that a $25,000 security system might have prevented up to 6.4 million citizens’ private records from being accessed by the hacker. It was also disclosed that there was no cyber security chief in the DOR for nearly a year.

According to a press release, today’s agenda will feature testimony from Mandiant, the DOR, the Nelson Mullins Law Firm and Experian. Mandiant is the cyber-security firm that wrote a preliminary report on the details of the hack. Nelson Mullins provided legal counsel to the state and Experian is the credit reporting company the state hired to protect the credit of potential victims.

Bakari Sellers (D-90), who is on the committee, said there are still plenty of questions that need to be answered. “We need to know exactly what happened and how this act of terrorism occurred in our state,” he said. “We need to make sure it never happens again, but we also need to know if there was something about South Carolina’s security system that made us more vulnerable to this kind of attack.”

Sellers said questions still need to be answered about why Experian was given a $12 million no-bid contract.

Thus far, SLED has been tight-lipped about the status of its investigation of the hack, but Sellers wants to hear what Chief Mark Keel has to say. “We’ll clear the room if we have to (so as not to compromise the investigation),” Sellers said.

According to Sellers, the group will have subpoena power. He expects the investigation to last between one and two months.

The chairman of the committee is Bruce Bannister (R-24). He released the following statement after the committee was formed: 

"This security breakdown is shockingly disturbing. It's clear that something went horribly wrong, and our citizens are entitled to answers and assurances that these problems are being addressed. Our Investigation needs to uncover exactly what went wrong so we can take the necessary steps to make sure it doesn't happen again. Our citizens expect better, and deserve better, from their state government."

See all of Patch's coverage of the DOR Hack HERE.

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