An article in the November 2, edition of Government Technology, by Theo Douglas, was entitled, "Iowa Employee Pension Accounts Compromised, Security Practices Scrutinized". Douglas explained that the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System, “which counts more than 115,000 retirees among its members, ran system queries and discovered 103 retiree accounts had been ‘compromised,’ according to Judy Akre, IPERS director of communications.” The theft was “discovered on Halloween”, according to the article, and “was not the result of a hack… but sparked an FBI investigation and changes to security practices."

Douglas continued: "The theft appears to have happened when thieves gained access to Social Security numbers and dates of birth for members and were able to leverage this information to register for IPERS online account access, then alter existing direct deposit information, Akre explained."

While IPERS has "reissued the payments affected to their 'original financial institutions'", the article delineates the continued impact of the theft, as follows: "Online account access was restored on Wednesday, Nov. 2 with exceptions: direct deposit information cannot be changed online; online member access remains unavailable for the 103 retired members whose payments were redirected; and the 103 fraudulent accounts detected have been disabled."

 

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