Overview
- Florida’s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles disclosed that it learned of a DAVID database breach on Sept. 4 and that the incident has been mitigated and contained.
- The agency says investigators found the attacker used credentials from a single Plant City Police Department account that had been improperly stored on an employee’s personal device.
- The hacker group ShinyHunters claimed to have taken more than 200,000 DAVID records, posted a screenshot of an alleged Jeffrey Epstein record, and later removed Florida from its site while saying it had lost access.
- State officials have not confirmed how many records were accessed, and the scope of exposed data remains unknown as the FLHSMV works with state law enforcement, Florida Digital Service and federal partners.
- Because DAVID holds names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and vehicle data, the breach raises clear risks of identity theft and has renewed calls for stronger employee security practices and system hardening.