City of Chattanooga investigating data breach

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- The Chattanooga Mayor’s office says it learned Friday that city data was affected by the recent Nationwide Recovery Services breach.Nationwide provides debt collection services to city government.

The city says there’s no indication that anything other than debt collection data was affected.

Thing of it is: the city now says it received a letter dated February 7th informing the city of the breach.

However, that information did not make it to the mayor’s office until Friday afternoon.

The city says the failure of the information to reach necessary channels is unacceptable.

They say they have launched an investigation will be held to figure out how it happened.

Also as of Friday, the city wrote to Nationwide, asking the company to inform everyone potentially affected by the breach, as well as offering credit monitoring and identity protection.

Hamilton County has also dealt with a similar breach with National Recovery Services, leading to contentious debate over how information of the breach was shared.