Missouri budget officials outline $50M cost of data breach

By SUMMER BALLENTINE
Associated Press

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Help for roughly 100,000 teachers whose Social Security numbers were vulnerable in a massive state data breach could cost Missouri as much as $50 million. Republican Gov. Mike Parson’s spokeswoman on Tuesday confirmed that the rough cost estimate includes credit monitoring and the cost of a call center to help teachers. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says it found the vulnerability and flagged the issue to the education department. The newspaper says it gave the agency time to fix the issue before the paper published a report on it. Parson has cast blame on the newspaper for finding the problem.