The personal information of up to 2,200 Oregon taxpayers may be in the wrong hands after a former part-time employee downloaded pornography and a hidden spyware program.
The Oregon Department of Revenue announced last week that the Trojan horse program installed itself in early January and then relayed data to whoever created the program over the next four months. The agency said that the data consisted of Social Security numbers, names and addresses, but included no tax records, financial or credit card information.
Officials from the department have said that 1,300 letters were sent out early last week to the affected taxpayers, and that the rest of the taxpayers will be contacted as they are identified.
The department has banned employees from accessing Web sites for personal use, and also posted a list of frequently asked questions for taxpayers on its Web site, at
