Columbia, SC (WLTX) - Many residents in the Palmetto State are still rattled after finding out that more than three million residents personal information has been hacked.
"This is not a good day in South Carolina," said Governor Nikki Haley.
A clearly upset Governor Haley started the press conference saying more than 3 million social security numbers and other information was stolen from state computers.
"South Carolina has come under attack from an international hacker. The South Carolina department of Revenue and SLED were notified that a sever with all of our tax payer information was breached and taxpayer information was stolen," said Haley.
SLED Chief Mark Keel says the hacking began as early as August 27th.
The Secret Service says that they needed to get a certain amount of information to finally inform the public two weeks later.
"It took a while for them to see how much data was stolen and so that is the reason for part of it," said Keel.
This affects three out of every four residents in our state and anyone who has filled taxes since 1998.
The Governor now wants people to call a hotline to help people protect their identity.
"This is the responsibility of the state to protect the tax payers. This is going over and beyond, we have the 1-800 number, we have the protect-my-identity.com. No taxpayer should be victim to this, I am not going to allow that to happen," said Haley.
There is no exact timeline on how quick they can find the hacker but Haley says they are going to do all they can to make an arrest.
"At the end of the day we want people to know we are on this, we got it and we are going to take care of it."