Maine Shuts Down Its Data Breach Notification Portal After Being Flooded With False Claims

Maine AG Breach Reporting Portal Abused with Fake Notices Impersonating Discord and VRChat
False reports submitted through the public admission system; The hoaxes were later confirmed and eliminated.
Portal offline for investigation, companies can still submit applications but public access is suspended

The Maine Attorney General’s Office was forced to take its reporting portal offline after multiple false disclosures ended up on the website.

The Breach Notification Portal is a public receipt system for legally required data breach notifications, so if an organization experiences a breach that affects Maine residents, they can submit their notification through this portal instead of sending an email or postal mail. Once submitted, the Attorney General’s office reviews the notice and typically publishes it, so the public can see confirmed incidents affecting residents.

However, recently, fraudulent submissions posing as Discord and VRChat ended up on the platform, with the latter having to issue a statement saying that the submission was submitted under a fake employee name.

Disable the portal

Shortly after, the Maine Attorney General’s Office confirmed the reports, saying the forgeries were submitted through the state’s reporting system.

“The Maine Attorney General’s Office has been informed of apparent abuse of our data breach notification system,” the statement said.

“After conversations with VRChat, one of the two affected companies, it became clear that the reported data breaches were hoaxes sent by an unknown entity unrelated to either company. These false reports have been removed from the database. We are not aware of any recent legitimate data breach reports from VRChat or Discord.”

To prevent similar abuses in the future, the Maine AG Office launched an investigation and temporarily disabled public access to the portal.

“We do not have any independent knowledge of the violations, the submitting entity fills out the information and goes directly to the site. We will review the one you have flagged, thank you,” the Maine Attorney General’s Office said. beepcomputer.

Businesses can still submit non-compliance notices through the reporting service, but the general public seeking information will need to contact the Bureau directly.

Through beepcomputer