Online fishing, hunting license sales halted in Northwest

Even so, the cybersecurity breach prompted all three Northwest states to temporarily shut down online fishing and hunting license sales as a precaution.

OR closed its online license sales late Thursday to allow state investigators more time to check on the system’s security after a breach Tuesday.

The agency is working with the state Office of Cyber Security (OCS) to investigate a vulnerability in an outside vendor’s license sales system and is working to restore sales as soon as possible. Officials say online sales will be halted “indefinitely” until the state can be sure the public’s information will be secure. Idaho, Oregon and Washington have shutdown online sales of hunting and fishing licenses amid concerns a vendor’s computer system has been hacked and personal information is at risk.

In June, the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department was also impacted by a breach.

The company “became aware that we were the victim of an unauthorized and unlawful attempt to access” those systems on Monday, a statement said. Within 15 hours, we conducted a full security sweep and tested and released an update to the three applications to address the reported threat. That suspension continues. Licenses and tags still can be purchased through Fish and Game offices and about 400 businesses, which use a separate system.

Active Network said it didn’t receive reports or find evidence that personal information was compromised.

Requirements for all anglers to have fishing licenses, catch record cards, and endorsements will be back in effect on Wednesday, Aug. 31.

Efforts to reach Active Network were unsuccessful.

“I guess about the worst someone could do with this information is print off a duplicate license for you”, Fish and Wildlife spokesman Mark Marraccini said. June 5th was the deadline for applications for controlled hunt tags.