More than 1M SC residents affected by security breaches this year, SCDCA said. What to know

Data breaches are becoming increasingly common in the U.S., and while the annual number of victims is dropping, millions of residents across the country are still at risk of having their private information leaked.

In 2025, there were 278.8 million data breach victims across the U.S., according to Experian, a leading credit reporting agency.

The South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs recently reported that dozens of businesses in the state have had data breaches in the first half of this year.

Here’s what to know about the SC security breaches:

Security breach stats in SC

Between Jan. 1 and June 30, there have been 41 security breaches in SC, affecting 1,131,320 South Carolina residents. While this may sound like an outrageous number, it’s a significant decline of victims from last year. The SCDCA documented that nearly 3 million South Carolinians were affected by data breaches in 2025.

The SCDCA said that financial institutions reported the most breaches (12) involving 801,652 residents. Hospitality businesses had four breaches, which impacted 154,455 residents. The education sector reported three breaches, affecting 91,842 South Carolinians.

What to do if you receive a security breach notice

A data breach can compromise your sensitive information, such as your passwords and passcodes, social security number, mailing addresses and biometric data, and put it in the hands of criminals. The SCDCA provided these steps to take if someone ever receives a security breach notice:

Protect Impacted Accounts

A person who has been affected by a security breach should change their password right away and turn on multi-factor authentication.

Passwords should be unique to each account and at least 16 characters long with mixed-case letters, numbers and symbols. Using multi-factor authentication will add an extra step (like a text message code or facial recognition) to your login process, making it more secure, the SCDCA said.

Closely monitor your credit report and financial statements/accounts

Check all monthly statements and account activity for unauthorized purchases/accounts and suspicious items. You can obtain free credit reports by visiting annualcreditreport.com or calling (877) 322-8228.

Consider a fraud alert and security freeze

Putting a fraud alert on your report forces businesses to verify your identity before it issues credit or services in your name. This makes it harder for a thief to open new accounts in your name.

A security freeze stops anyone from opening new accounts using your information, until you lift the freeze. Contact one of the three major credit reporting agencies to place an alert and contact each of them to place a freeze: Equifax (800) 685-1111, Experian (888) 397-3742 and TransUnion (888) 909-8872.

If your government-issued identification has been breached, or fraudulently misused, contact the issuing agency. You may need to cancel the ID and get a replacement.

You can check out all security breaches affecting South Carolinians here.