Tori Bedford reports:
Thousands of employees in the Massachusetts cannabis industry received an official email last week about a major data breach: the name, home and email address, phone number and date of birth of every cannabis worker in the state had been made public in an “inadvertent release of agency documents” by the state’s own Cannabis Control Commission. Along with the names and personal information, the dataset included a list of former employees and the specific reasons they were no longer associated with the marijuana company, including alleged violations of company policy.
The state email provided little context for the leak, sparking panic and confusion across online message boards and the local cannabis community. Cannabis workers say they didn’t know what the breach meant for their safety. They also didn’t know that the leak leads back to an investigation into a Russian oligarch and a Belmont-based blogger now hiding in a safe house.
Read more at GBH.
h/t, @Walker