The Department of Revenue is a department of the

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

state government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonom ...

responsible for the administration of 32 different state taxes in South Carolina. The Department is responsible for licensing and taxing all

manufacturers Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...

wholesalers Wholesaling or distributing is the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers; to industrial, commercial, institutional or other professional business users; or to other wholesalers (wholesale businesses) and related subordinated services. In g ...

and

retailers Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler ...

alcoholic Alcoholism is the continued drinking of alcohol despite it causing problems. Some definitions require evidence of dependence and withdrawal. Problematic use of alcohol has been mentioned in the earliest historical records. The World Hea ...

liquor Liquor ( , sometimes hard liquor), spirits, distilled spirits, or spiritous liquor are alcoholic drinks produced by the distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar that have already gone through ethanol fermentation, alcoholic ferm ...

s. The Department is also responsible for enforcing the Bingo Act of 1996 which affects manufacturers, distributors, organizations and promoters. Coin-operated device tax is collected from all manufactures, distributors or owners of such devices or machines. Owners of such machines must also be licensed.

Tax records theft

On August 13, 2012, an unidentified remote attacker compromised systems at the Department of Revenue. The attacker initially penetrated the system using

phishing Phishing is a form of social engineering and a scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as viruses, worms, adware, or ransomware. Phishing attacks have become increasingly sophisticate ...

emails to employees. The attacker then installed a

backdoor A back door is a door in the rear of a building. Back door may also refer to: Arts and media * Back Door (jazz trio), a British group * Porta dos Fundos (literally “Back Door” in Portuguese) Brazilian comedy YouTube channel. * Works so tit ...

. Over the next two months, the attacker remotely compiled and downloaded data such as employee password hashes and the tax records dating from 1998 to 2011. On October 10, the

United States Secret Service The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security tasked with conducting criminal investigations and providing protection to American political leaders, thei ...

notified the SC Department of Revenue of a possible breach. The attacker ceased activities on October 17, having compromised a total of 44 systems. As of early 2013, this is the largest ever

cyberattack A cyberattack (or cyber attack) occurs when there is an unauthorized action against computer infrastructure that compromises the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of its content. The rising dependence on increasingly complex and inte ...

on a US state government, with 3.8 million unencrypted Social Security numbers (equivalent to over 78% of South Carolina's population) stolen along with private and business-related financial information. South Carolina contracted with private credit-reporting agency

Experian Experian plc is a multinational corporation, multinational data broker and consumer credit reporting company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Experian collects and aggregates information on more than 1 billion people and businesses including ...

to provide South Carolina residents and other affected individuals with a year of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection.

References

External links

{{authority control State alcohol agencies of the United States Taxation in South Carolina

Revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of product (business), goods and services related to the primary operations of a business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some compan ...

US state tax agencies