A hacker gained access to one of The Nature Conservancy’s computers on Sept. 12, obtaining the personal and financial information of 14,000 people, including the organization’s employees and their dependents.
What types of personal information? The hacker accessed names, home addresses, Social Security numbers, and birth dates of current and former U.S.-based employees of the organization who had worked there during the past seven years.
The breached information also includes direct deposit bank account numbers for employees who worked at the non-profit between 2000 and 2004, and the social security numbers of those employees’ dependents.
Information on employees who began work after Aug. 3 was not affected.
What was the response? The Nature Conservancy sent a letter to all affected employees and reported the theft to the FBI and the Arlington County, Va., police.
The organization is offering a year of free credit-monitoring service, including email alerts and $25,000 in identity theft insurance.
Details: No one has reported a financial theft as a result of the hacking.
Quote: “It may have just been that they were trying to hack into a database and they happened onto this one,” said Linda Foley, founder of the Identity Theft Resource Center.
Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Oct. 2, “Hackers open data of group’s workers”
What types of personal information? The hacker accessed names, home addresses, Social Security numbers, and birth dates of current and former U.S.-based employees of the organization who had worked there during the past seven years.
The breached information also includes direct deposit bank account numbers for employees who worked at the non-profit between 2000 and 2004, and the social security numbers of those employees’ dependents.
Information on employees who began work after Aug. 3 was not affected.
What was the response? The Nature Conservancy sent a letter to all affected employees and reported the theft to the FBI and the Arlington County, Va., police.
The organization is offering a year of free credit-monitoring service, including email alerts and $25,000 in identity theft insurance.
Details: No one has reported a financial theft as a result of the hacking.
Quote: “It may have just been that they were trying to hack into a database and they happened onto this one,” said Linda Foley, founder of the Identity Theft Resource Center.
Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Oct. 2, “Hackers open data of group’s workers”
