"This is the world in which we live in...We're going to fight. We're going to take care of it," said Haley.
/ Zoheb Hassanali
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WACH, AP) -- South Carolina has negotiated a deal that will allow citizens affected by a hacker attack on state tax returns to get free credit fraud resolution for life.
Haley also said during a news conference Tuesday that the state has negotiated with credit monitoring agency Experian to limit South Carolina's costs for a year's worth of credit monitoring at $12 million. In addition, the state hired information security company Mandiant to look over the department's databases in order to avoid another incident.
"This is the world in which we live in...We're going to fight. We're going to take care of it," said Haley.
State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel says computer hacking is happening everywhere and there are different motivations for it.
Officials announced last week that up to 3.6 million returns from as far back as 1998 may have been compromised by the international hacker, who likely penetrated the Department of Revenue's system a month before the breach was detected by the U.S. Secret Service.
Department of Revenue Director Jim Etter said 5,000 out of 16,000 credit cards were exposed from the server, but all of the numbers were expired.
Haley has repeatedly stressed that no one from the Revenue Department is to blame for the hacking incident.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forWACH