Data breach of W-2 forms hits thousands of Bloomington school employees

Bloomington Public Schools reports employees' personal and financial information has been compromised in a data breach of W-2 tax forms.

The information includes names, social security numbers, addresses and earnings.

The district said it alerted employees on Friday and it's working with the IRS, FBI and local law enforcement. They believe it was an external phishing scam by someone hoping to file fraudulent tax returns.

"When we talked with a number of the federal and state agencies, the W-2 phishing scam is something that is pretty prevalant at this time of year with tax returns," said district spokesman Rick Kaufman.

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The breach affects several thousand employees, including active employees and also anyone who briefly worked for the district.

"A lot of employees really have questions," said Kaufman. "What is the impact, the likely impact on them, what steps they can take at this time to protect any other data."

The district is offering employees one year of personal security protection and Kaufman said it's doing an internal review to prevent future breaches.

Another school district in West Virginia was also affected this week.