California Unclaimed Property Regulator Suffers Hack

 As if there weren't enough reasons for businesses and individuals to proactively search for and recover their unclaimed property, add increased information security to the list....

According to an article by Wes Venteicher in The Sacramento Bee, the California State Controller's Office, Unclaimed Property Division was recently the subject of a "spear phishing" attack, which may have exposed personally identifying information and unclaimed property details for more than 9,000 potential claimants.  According to the article, the hacker posed as an organization that the Controller's Office did business with in the past.  

The Controller's office is in the process of notifying affected individuals about the breach and has buttressed security procedures relating to the properties at issue.  Yet another reason to make those unclaimed property claims sooner rather than later.