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City of Chattanooga says it was also affected by data breach

Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / From left, Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly and Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp talk at the Chattanooga Convention Center, on March 27, 2025. Both the city and county have been notified of a data breach by a collection agency.
Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / From left, Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly and Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp talk at the Chattanooga Convention Center, on March 27, 2025. Both the city and county have been notified of a data breach by a collection agency. Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / From left, Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly and Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp talk at the Chattanooga Convention Center, on March 27, 2025. Both the city and county have been notified of a data breach by a collection agency.

By Staff Report 4 min read

The city of Chattanooga was also affected by a data breach that Hamilton County officials have recently disclosed, officials said Friday.

Both incidents stem from Nationwide Recovery Services, a collection agency based in Cleveland, Tennessee.

“Nationwide Recovery Services provides debt collection services to city government,” city spokesperson Eric Holl said in a news release. “There is no indication that anything other than debt collection services data was affected.”

According to Holl, the agency informed the city about the issue in a Feb. 7 letter. But the cybersecurity incident dates back to July, and collection agency officials told the city in the Feb. 7 letter that an email had been sent July 14 informing the city of a problem.

“The failure of this information to reach necessary channels is an unacceptable error,” Holl said in the release. “We will launch a thorough investigation into how this information failed for so long to reach necessary channels, and we will share the results of that investigation with the public, while taking the necessary steps to ensure this kind of error never happens again. Today, the city attorney’s office wrote Nationwide Recovery Services, compelling them to inform everyone potentially affected and to offer them complimentary credit monitoring and identity protection.