Once again, we see a timeline where it took a loooong time before an entity actually discloses a breach, but the entity’s explanation involves how long it took to determine who was impacted. In this case, it tood from June 14, when they first became suspicious of activity that had occurred in March until November 7 to figure out who was impacted. After that, it reportedly took another two months to get contact information for those impacted.
Here’s part of their breach notification of February 24:
What Happened? On June 14, 2019 Pacific Specialty became aware of suspicious activity in employee email accounts. It immediately began an investigation to determine what happened and what information may have been affected. With the assistance of third-party forensic investigators, it was determined that certain employee email accounts were subject to unauthorized access between March 20, 2019 and March 30, 2019. Every potentially accessible file within the impacted accounts was reviewed to determine what files may have been accessible to the unauthorized actor. On November 7, 2019 Pacific Specialty became aware of the identities of the individuals whose information was included in the impacted accounts. It continued working to obtain contact information for impacted individuals through January 14, 2020.
What Information Was Involved?The types of information contained within the potentially impacted emails varied by individual but include: an individual’s name, Social Security number, driver’s license and/or government issued identification, financial information, payment card information, medical information, and health insurance information.
What is Pacific Specialty Doing in Response to this Incident?Pacific Specialty is committed to, and takes very seriously, its responsibility to protect all data in its possession. Pacific Specialty is continuously taking steps to enhance data security protections. As part of its incident response, it changed the log-in credentials for all employee email accounts to prevent further unauthorized access. Since then, it has continued ongoing efforts to enhance security controls, such as enabling multifactor authentication, and implemented additional controls to help protect employee email accounts from unauthorized access.
In an abundance of caution, Pacific Specialty is offering 12 months of complimentary credit monitoring to potentially affected individuals so that they may take further steps to best protect their personal information, should they feel it is appropriate to do so. On January 24, 2020, Pacific Specialty also began mailing notice letters to individuals whose information was contained within the impacted accounts and for whom it had a postal address.
You can read the full press release here.