Southern Tire Mart, LLC has notified individuals that unauthorized access occurred within a limited portion of its internal network between approximately June 2 and June 3, 2025. The company says it identified and contained the activity on June 3, 2025, and then brought in independent cybersecurity experts to investigate. That review determined that certain files containing sensitive personal information may have been accessed during the intrusion, which the company describes as a hacking or system intrusion into its own network rather than an issue at an outside vendor.
Based on the letter’s language thanking current and former team members for their patience, this notice appears to be directed at Southern Tire Mart employees and former employees whose information was stored on the affected systems, rather than customers. The company has not stated a specific number of people affected in the portion of the letter provided.
What information was exposed?
- Full name
- Home address
- Social Security number
- Direct deposit or bank account information
Southern Tire Mart is offering free identity theft protection through IDX, which includes 12 months of credit and CyberScan monitoring, a $1,000,000 insurance reimbursement policy, and fully managed ID theft recovery services. The letter references an enrollment code, a toll-free number, and an IDX website for signing up, along with an enrollment deadline, but the specific code, URL, and deadline in the source document provided to us were left as placeholders rather than filled-in values. If you received this letter, check your personal copy for the actual enrollment code and deadline printed at the top.
What should you do now?
- Enroll in the free IDX identity protection offered in your letter, using the enrollment code printed at the top of your personal notice, and activate the included credit monitoring — it does not protect you until you turn it on.
- Because your Social Security number and bank account information were involved, place a fraud alert or a security freeze with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion; a freeze is free and prevents new accounts from being opened in your name.
- Watch your bank and payroll direct deposit accounts closely for unrecognized changes or withdrawals, since direct deposit information was part of what was accessed.
- Order your free annual credit reports at annualcreditreport.com and review them for accounts you don’t recognize.
- Consider signing up for a service like Aura or LifeLock, which can alert you if your information appears elsewhere, giving you an extra layer of ongoing monitoring beyond the initial credit watch.
- Keep the letter and any enrollment confirmation, since you may need proof of the incident if you ever need to dispute fraudulent activity or file a police report.
This notice was issued under California Civil Code section 1798.82.