On May 12, 2025, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) disclosed a significant data breach that compromised crash reports containing personal data of over 423,000 individuals. In this episode, we take a forensic look at what went wrong, how one compromised account enabled unauthorized downloads of sensitive crash data, and what this means for the cybersecurity posture of government agencies.
We’ll explore the risks such breaches pose to citizens—ranging from phishing and social engineering to full-blown identity theft—and discuss the immediate steps individuals should take if they’re impacted. Our conversation expands into the systemic cybersecurity challenges facing public institutions, from outdated systems and internal threats to the rising need for AI-driven defense and cloud-based record protection.
Also in this episode: best practices for securing government data, insights from recent large-scale public breaches, and how to evaluate identity monitoring services in the wake of a personal data leak.
