So here’s another case where a vendor’s database was accessed by someone who was able to acquire a client’s login credentials:
The international law firm of McKenna Long & Aldridge notified the Maryland Attorney General’s Office on February 26 that 441 current and former employees’ W-2 information and other information were involved:
As a result of that investigation and further information provided by the vendor, it appears that some information related to current and former employees was accessed on November 28, 2013 (Thanksgiving Day), December 11, 2013, and December 12, 2013 and that such access was obtained through the malicious and unauthorized access to the user identification and password of an account administrator. MLA has since reset all passwords for each user and asked all users to establish a new password. We are also working with our vendor to ensure that this does not occur again.
Regrettably, our investigation appears to show that your personal information was accessed without authorization during this incident, including Federal Wage and Tax Statement Form W-2 name, address, wages, taxes and Social Security number information; date of birth, age, gender, ethnicity; and Visa, Passport or Federal Form I 9 documents numbers.
Those affected were offered a year of free credit monitoring with Experian ProtectMyID.
Although it might be a coincidence, the February 14th vendor notification date is the same as that reported by Assisted Living Concepts in their breach report involving their payroll vendor and acquired login credentials.