Jim Langevin on Fallout From the RI Bridges Cyber Attack

The Public's Radio morning host Luis Hernandez talked with Jim Langevin, former Rhode Island Congressman and Distinguished Chair at Rhode Island College’s Institute for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies to find out what’s at stake and what can be done to prevent a cyber attack in the future.

An investigation is underway to determine what went wrong when hackers gained access to data kept in the RI Bridges software system. And already a class-action lawsuit has been filed against the company that manages the database.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Hernandez:
Could you just briefly help us understand what’s at stake for those people whose personal information has been compromised?

Langevin:
Well, what’s at stake is their identity being stolen, hijacked, if you will, and then potentially being used for nefarious purposes to open up credit in their names and obviously for the bad intent of whoever stole the data or puts it out there on the, on the dark web. The most important thing right now that individuals can do, even if you think, even if you’re unsure, that you are involved in this data breach. It’s best to freeze your credit and,the other thing I would do is I would also enable multi factor authentication.

This interview was conducted by The Public's Radio. You can read the entire interview here.