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Whiting-Turner notifies employees of potential breach at vendor

Posted on April 9, 2016 by Dissent

A Whiting-Turner  vendor seems to have had a breach, although the nature of the breach or numbers affected are not clear. From WT’s notification template:

Whiting-Turner is writing to inform you of a recent event that may affect the security of your child’s personal information. We are providing this notice to provide you, the parent/guardian, with information about the incident, steps we are taking in response, and steps you can take to protect your child against identity theft and fraud should you feel it is appropriate to do so.

What Happened?

Whiting-Turner uses an outside vendor to provide tax filing and information services, including preparation of our employees’ W-2 and 1095 tax forms. On March 8, 2016, this vendor notified us they had detected suspicious activity on their systems. We also received reports around that time from some of our employees regarding fraudulent tax filings in their names. In response, we immediately shut down the ability for users to access the information on the outside vendor’s systems and began an investigation to determine whether any Whiting-Turner employee information was accessed by an unauthorized individual. Our investigation is ongoing, and we have not yet confirmed whether any Whiting-Turner information was subject to unauthorized access on the outside vendor’s systems.

What Information Was Involved?

If your child is a minor dependent who received healthcare insurance coverage under a policy for which the primary policyholder was a current, former, or retired employee, we believe this incident may affect the security of your child’s information contained on that employee policyholder’s 2015 IRS Form 1095, which includes the following: name, date of birth, and Social Security number of any minor dependent.

What We Are Doing.

We take the security of your child’s personal information very seriously. Upon learning of this incident, we immediately shut down the ability for users to access the information on the outside vendor’s systems. We continue to investigate to ensure the security of our employees’ and their minor dependents’ information. In an abundance of caution, we are providing notice of this incident to all individuals whose information may be at risk as a result of this incident.

Read the full letter on the California AG’s web site. The corresponding letter to employees reads:

Whiting-Turner is writing to inform you of a recent event that may affect the security of your personal information. We are providing this notice to provide you with information about the incident, steps we are taking in response, and steps you can take to protect against identity theft and fraud should you feel it is appropriate to do so.

What Happened?

Whiting-Turner uses an outside vendor to provide tax filing and information services, including preparation of our employees’ W-2 and 1095 tax forms. On March 8, 2016, this vendor notified us they had detected suspicious activity on their systems. We also received reports around that time from some of our employees regarding fraudulent tax filings in their names. In response, we immediately shut down the ability for users to access the information on the outside vendor’s systems and began an investigation to determine whether any Whiting-Turner employee information was accessed by an unauthorized individual. Our investigation is ongoing, and we have not yet confirmed whether any Whiting-Turner information was subject to unauthorized access on the outside vendor’s systems.

What Information Was Involved?

If you are a current, former, or retired employee who received an IRS Form W-2 from Whiting-Turner for 2015, we believe this incident may affect the security of information contained on your IRS Form W-2, which includes the following: employee name, Social Security number, wage information, and withholding information.

If you are an adult beneficiary or adult dependent who received healthcare insurance coverage under a policy for which the primary policyholder was a current, former, or retired employee, we believe this incident may affect the security of information contained on that employee policyholder’s 2015 IRS Form 1095, which includes the following: name, date of birth, and Social Security number of any adult beneficiary or adult dependent.

So who is the vendor? Is this related to the Greenshades reports we’ve seen in other cases or is this wholly unrelated?

Category: Business SectorU.S.

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2 thoughts on “Whiting-Turner notifies employees of potential breach at vendor”

  1. Anonymous says:
    April 22, 2016 at 9:36 am

    Do we know who the vendor is, please update so we can be informed.

    1. Dissent says:
      April 22, 2016 at 10:08 am

      I don’t know yet. I’ve even tried matching the date that they were notified by the vendor against other breaches involving vendors to see if I could figure it out, but I’m really not sure.

Comments are closed.

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