Lexington Two loses employee data through cyber security breach

West Columbia, SC (Paul Kirby) - Lexington County School District 2 announced last Friday that they had fallen victim to a social engineering scam earlier in the week. This allowed them to have some of their employees'personal data breached.

According to Google, a social engineering fraud or scam is a broad term that refers to the scams used by criminals to trick, deceive and manipulate their victims into giving out confidential information and funds. The criminals exploit a person's trust in order to find out their banking details, passwords or other personal data.

The district became aware of the scam on Thursday, January 26, 2017. The data breach included W-2 information of employees that worked for Lexington School District 2 between January 1 and December 31, 2016. The district immediately sent out notification to employees on the day the breach was discovered.

A follow-up letter was issued today with further instructions on signing up for fraud protection and credit monitoring. The district said in its statement that credit monitoring services will be provided to their employees free of charge.

Once the breach was discovered, the district notified law enforcement on the local and state level and contacted other regulatory agencies as well.