While the Desjardins data breach is focused on insurance customers, it seems that credit card holders are also affected. This affects an additional 2 million customers.
Back in June, Quebec based insurance company, Desjardins, suffered from a data breach. In all, 2.7 million were reportedly affected at the time. As is sometimes the case, the initial numbers have an uncanny ability to grow like a weed. In November, that number was revised to 4.2 million affected customers. At the time, we pointed out that it is unlikely that the number would grow. This is simply because it affected their entire customer base. It was a very safe bet to make at the time.
… or so we thought.
Unfortunately, it seems that, somehow, the breach successfully figured out how to get worse. It turns out, the company also offered credit card services. Sure enough, reports are now surfacing saying that those customers have been impacted by the breach too. An estimated 2 million additional customers have been affected. From the CBC:
Desjardins Group says the former employee suspected of orchestrating a massive data breach also had access to the personal information of a further 1.8-million credit card holders.
These credit card holders are not members of Desjardins, Canada’s biggest federation of credit unions. They are in addition to the 4.2 million members already known to be affected by the data breach.
The data breach was first made public in June. At the time, authorities alleged the suspect — an employee who has since been fired — had transferred the personal information of members to a third party.
On a conference call Tuesday, Desjardins’s executives said they don’t believe the personal information of the credit card holders was transferred to a third party. They were informing the public as “preventive” measure, they said.
Desjardins’s executives also said the suspect only had access to limited amounts of data.
Well, lesson learned. If every single customer for a company is impacted by a breach, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the number of those affected won’t continue to grow from there. Apparently, data breaches have successfully broken the 100% customer base barrier (and certain laws of mathematics in the process). The sky really is the limit. This really is one of those moments where a breach is so bad, it’s actually impressive.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
