Officials: Data Stolen From Baltimore City Employees

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The city of Baltimore is battling an unexpected data breach. The personal info for thousands of city workers could be at risk.

Ava-joye Burnett tells us the city only found out when some workers started complaining about a very specific problem.

That problem involved tax returns. When some workers tried to file their taxes, they found out a crook had already beaten them to it.

It's possible that the names, Social Security numbers and birthdays for thousands of Baltimore City employees is now in the hands of cyber thieves. The city only found out about this when some employees tried to file their taxes and the IRS rejected it when someone else had already illegally filed those taxes.

"I mean, it was really scary," said one woman who works in the Housing Department.

The Baltimore City employee didn't want to show her face because she's not allowed to speak with the media.

"I called my husband because we had filed our taxes but we hadn't heard back yet so he double-checked with the accountant to make sure they had been accepted, which they had, but it's still scary for someone to have my Social Security number. Who knows what they can do?" she said.

"It's always concerning when your private data or anyone's private data is out there somewhere," said city employee Njukang Asong.

This breach could potentially impact current and former employees. That's why the city is working on setting up credit monitoring so that folks can keep an eye on their credit.

"We don't know where the data was taken from. We don't know if it was from the city; we don't know if it was from someone like a healthcare provider or something else. We are trying to assess," said Howard Libit, who's the mayor's spokesperson.

The FBI is now involved to figure out who has their hands on the personal info for workers. The attorney general and IRS have also been notified of the breach.

The city is working to set up credit monitoring for employees, retirees and their families.

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