Ted Land reports:
Tens of thousands of Alaskans are trying to find out if their personal information is missing. Attorney General Dan Sullivan announced Thursday there’s been a massive security breach reaching the highest levels of state government.
More than 77,000 Alaskans’ personal information is missing. No one knows where it went.
[…]
On that list, are Sullivan and Gov. Sean Parnell and more than 77,000 other Alaskans who were participants in the Public Employees Retirement System and the Teachers Retirement System in 2003 and 2004.
“In this case the information that we’re concerned of is names, dates of birth and social security numbers,” Sullivan said.
In the process of an ongoing lawsuit against the state’s former actuary, Mercer, a law firm turned over personal information to the state’s financial experts, PricewaterhouseCoopers, a private firm which was evaluating the list as part of the lawsuit.
In early December, PricewaterhouseCoopers realized the names and numbers could not be found.
Read more on KTUU.
BNO News reports more on the state’s settlement with
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP:
Alaska Attorney General Dan Sullivan said that PricewaterhouseCoopers has accepted responsibility for the security failure.
“Most importantly, the firm has agreed to protect Alaskans by paying for identity theft protection and credit-monitoring, or a security freeze, for each of the 77,000 Alaskans who are potentially affected by this failure and by ensuring that Alaskans are reimbursed for losses that they might incur as a result of ID theft caused by this breach,” Sullivan announced.
Sullivan also noted that other provisions of the settlement protect the state’s finances by, for example, requiring PricewaterhouseCoopers to pay for up to $100,000 of the cost of notifying affected individuals.