The Public School and Education Employee Retirement Systems (PSRS/PEERS) of Missouri were hit by a data breach in September, according to a notification sent to employees and beneficiaries last week.
The notice said there was a “data security incident” on Sept. 11, and that “as a result, your personal information may have been potentially exposed to an unauthorized individual.”
The hack occurred when an employee’s email account was accessed for less than an hour by someone from outside the retirement system without authorization. The pension fund said its information technology (IT) team disabled the employee’s email account within minutes of being told of the breach and that it alerted law enforcement authorities and took immediate steps to enhance security protocols to prevent a repeat of the incident.
“The accessed email account contained files with personal information relating to you, including your name, and internal PSRS/PEERS account numbers associated with you,” said the notice letter. “It may have also included your birth date.”
The letter emphasized that employees’ Social Security numbers were not included in the potentially exposed data. PSRS/PEERS has more than 128,000 active members along with more than 100,000 retirees and beneficiaries.
The letter to the retirement systems’ members was sent out the same day that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported it had discovered a vulnerability on a website maintained by the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) that allows the public to search teacher certifications and credentials. The report said that based on state pay records and other data, more than 100,000 Social Security numbers were vulnerable.
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