Workers at Oregon’s department of revenue have been banned from using their PCs for “non-business” purposes after a porn-hunting employee accidentally downloaded a Trojan which spirited away personal details of over 2,000 taxpayers.

The department is in the process of informing some 2,200 residents that their names, addresses and/or social security numbers have been forwarded to...well, no-one knows right now.

The department says one of its employees “unknowingly picked it up from a non-business website”. More specifically, reports have said the part-time employee had “picked it up” from a porn site.

Still, the Beaver state's tax department assures worried customers that it will put in place credit monitoring for those Oregonians affected. At the same time, it says, it will continue to use social security numbers to identify taxpayers “so we will continue to use them.”

One individual whose credit rating has presumably taken a battering is the employee who inadvertently downloaded the program – he was terminated in May. ®

Related stories

• US govt password security still dismal (6 August 2007)
• Intuit to refund TurboTax-niks for taxing times onTax Day (21 April 2007)
• Germany jails €12m porn Trojan scam duo (22 December 2006)
• Police hold three in spam Trojan bust (27 June 2006)
• Grisoft plunges into spyware jungle (20 June 2006)
• 1,000 Aussies caught in NAB phishing attack (19 June 2006)
• MS clean-up stats shed light on malware infections (13 June 2006)
• Spyware dominates malware production efforts (12 June 2006)
• Ransomware Trojan cracked (6 June 2006)
• Infected Windows PC? Just nuke it (5 April 2006)