Thousands of social security numbers stolen from government company
Hackers recently stole hundreds of thousands of Social Security numbers from a US consulting firm, potentially affecting victims across the US.
Greylock McKinnon Associates (GMA) has filed a new report with the Maine Attorney General’s Office and sent a breach notification email to affected individuals.
In its filing, the company said that 341,650 individuals have had their sensitive data and Social Security Numbers (SSN) stolen by unidentified threat actors.
Identities unknown
In the letter, seen by TechCrunch, GMA told victims that it fell victim to a “sophisticated cyber attack” in May last year. In the attack, the threat actors stole people’s names, dates of birth, addresses, and Medicare Health Insurance claim numbers, which also included Social Security numbers associated with a member.
In addition, “certain” medical information and/or health insurance information was also stolen. Although the attack took place almost a year ago, GMA was notified in early February that it had resulted in the theft of sensitive, personal data. It is unclear why GMA took so long to complete its investigation into the breach.
GMA is a consultancy firm that provides litigation support in civil lawsuits. The data it held was obtained by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) as part of a civil lawsuit and then passed on to the company. “We received your information in our service to the DOJ in support of this matter,” GMA said in the letter. “DOJ has informed us that you are not the subject of this investigation or related litigation. The DOJ has informed GMA that this incident will not affect your current Medicare benefits or coverage.
The identities of the attackers, or their motives, remain unknown. No threat actors have yet taken responsibility for the attack. It is also unknown whether the data was extracted from a specific process.