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The Oregon Department of Transportation on Friday sent a letter to approximately 600 contractors and subcontractors saying that their personal information had been exposed on a file transfer website for nearly two years.

A private citizen reported the data breach Jan. 3 after seeing the names, addresses and Social Security numbers on ODOT’s publicly-accessible file transfer protocol site. The information was immediately removed, ODOT spokesman Kevin Beckstrom said.

A temporary employee apparently had placed the names on the site in March 2012 and forgotten to take them down, he said.

“The nature of it was not malicious,” he said.

It was the second reported data breach at ODOT, which in August 2011 removed names and Social Security numbers of 62 then-current and former employees.

Employees and temporary workers are given training to make sure they understand what should and should not be posted on the FTP site, Beckstrom said.

“We have also added a secure file transfer network so that files are encrypted and sent to a specific person,” he said.

Each of the 600 contractors and subcontractors were advised to request a free credit report from each of the national credit reporting agencies. Oregon law also allows them to place a freeze on their credit, which costs $10 per agency and restricts the ability to borrow money or obtain credit.

For victims of identity theft, there is no charge for placing a freeze.

Detailed procedures are available at .