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Hackers halt hunting, fishing license sales in some states

Washington took the most sweeping action.

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State officials say the sale of hunting and fishing licenses has been suspended due to a cybersecurity breach. The state suspended the sale of all licences and tags Wednesday and is offering free fishing through Tuesday to compensate for the system being down.

It’s undetermined whether any customer information was obtained in the breach, Fish and Game said. Usually people could buy these tags online, but since someone broke into Fish and Game’s computer system, people had to buy them in person. According to its website, the company has 42,000 customers and handles 100 million online transactions annually for a variety of events, and government and business services. Both parties are also working with the vendor, and banding together with law enforcement, federal agencies, and officials in other states to determine how much personal information was gained.

Keckler said the degree of information exposed to hackers is not yet known.

Licenses and tags for hunters and anglers still can be purchased at Fish and Game offices or businesses that sell them.

The closure, agency officials said, is indefinite.

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“At this point we still do not know what Idaho data was breached”, Keckler said.

State Fish and Wildlife suspends license sales due to possible breach in computer system