An email phishing scheme caused several Rockdale ISD employees' taxes to be falsely filed and compromised confidential tax information for all employees in the district, officials confirmed to KVUE Thursday morning.
According to Superintendent Dr. Denise Monzingo, the data breach happened on Jan. 30. Monzingo said an employee, who has access to all employee W-2's, received an email from a person impersonating her position. The employee forwarded the tax information without realizing that the message wasn't being sent to the real superintendent.
Monzingo said they found out Monday about the false tax filing for several employees but could not confirm the number of employees impacted. She added that the data breach does, however, affect all employees in the district.
District officials said they contacted Rockdale Police after being alerted to the issue. Police looped in the FBI and the IRS to assist in the investigation.
To prevent these sort of problems, Rockdale ISD said they are meeting with several companies to improve their cybersecurity measures. They also plan to improve cyber training for employees, so that they know which emails are possible phishing schemes.