Texas agency reports data breach impacting nearly 45,000 victims of natural disasters

The Texas General Land Office suffered a data breach over the summer, compromising the personal data of nearly 45,000 residents who applied for state natural disaster relief over the last 10 years.

State officials said the breach — which affected 44,485 people — was caused by a “software misconfiguration” on the office’s online grant system known as the Texas Integrated Grant Reporting system, which resulted in allowing applicants see others’ private information, the report said, according to a report from the Austin American-Statesman last week.

The Texas General Land Office is the state’s agency that manages state-owned lands and mineral rights properties as well as the state’s Permanent School Fund.

The “misconfiguration” was initially discovered in late July and was first announced on Aug. 19 when a disclosure was published on the website of the state’s attorney general. While the attorney’s general disclosure states that 44,485 people were impacted, the Austin American-Statesman reported that a spokesperson for the General Land Office said the agency does not yet know exactly how many people’s data was made public or when the issue began.

The spokesperson also confirmed that those impacted in the breach were individuals who applied for state assistance to recover from natural disasters between 2015 and 2024. The particular state grant enabled relief for home repairs, rebuilding, and buyouts following disasters such as floods and storms. The dataset of relief applicants, however, did not include those impacted by the recent deadly flooding across Central Texas, the spokesperson added.

Texas has dealt with its fair share of data breaches and cybersecurity incidents over the past year. This year, the data of nearly 425,000 Texans was taken from the Texas Department of Transportation’s crash records database. In March, Mission, Texas, declared a state of emergency in response to a cyberattack. And in April, Abilene suspended its requirements of the state’s public records law after a disruptive cyberattack.

At the same time, the state has taken measures to improve its posture. In June, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law creating the Texas Cyber Command, a new organization to help bolster IT security across the state.