Data breach at Illinois DNR

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The Illinois Department of Natural Resources suffered a data breach earlier this week.

A spokesperson with the Department of Technology and Innovation tells NewsChannel 20 and Fox Illinois it was the "inadvertent release of [personal] information" of water craft registrants.

A spokesperson for the Illinois DNR says the State of Illinois routinely posts a list of active watercraft registration data to the IL Open Data Portal (under the Open Operating Standards Act) and watercraft registrations containing personal information were inadvertently uploaded to the Open Data Portal.

We're told a notice was sent out to all of those affected on Wednesday.

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We are assured that this data breach was not from hacking.

"The security of Illinois residents is our top priority," Jennifer Schultz with the Department of Technology and Innovation said. "Over the last few years, we've established a cyber security division with the State of Illinois to safeguard against these types of events. We are certainly taking all necessary measures to ensure these types of disclosures are prevented in the future."