Sales of state hunting, fishing licenses temporarily halted

State officials say the sale of hunting and fishing licenses has been suspended due to a cybersecurity breach.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on Saturday resumed the sale of fishing and hunting licenses and the state Discover Pass through its network of about 600 dealers across the state.

“Whether any of Idaho Fish and Game’s license buyers’ information was obtained has not yet been determined”, reads information from the department released Wednesday evening.

“We are committed to working with our state customers and law enforcement to assist in their own investigations of this matter”, the company said. Cockrill said the information that was compromised includes what you’d find on your driver’s license – but not full social security or credit card numbers – suggesting the hacker may have just been showing off.

Keckler said Idaho’s online licensing system run by Active Network will be down indefinitely.

License sales had been halted after someone hacked or attempted to hack into an outside vendor’s system, exposing the personal information of millions of people throughout the Northwest.

Active Network on its website says more than 42,000 organizers use its event and activity management software nationally. The warning came after Fish & Game officials held a conference call with their vendor, Texas-based Active Network, this afternoon.

Washington’s “free fishing” days also applies to shellfish harvesting.

“We use the same vendor, but our system employs completely different technology and uses more stringent security”, he said.

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