NY utilities say client data compromised
Posted by M. Brumer 23 January, 2012
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Two upstate New York utilities are providing consumers a year of free of charge credit monitoring after a software program contractor allowed access to their individual data.
New York State Electric and Gas and Rochester Gas and Electric say the info included Social Security numbers and birth dates. The subsidiaries of the international utility company Iberdrola also say some financial institution account numbers were exposed.
As of Monday, there was no sign any of the information had been misused. The companies say the access allowed by an employee at the outside consulting firm was a mistake, not malicious.
They’ve notified law enforcement and consumers about the breach and are performing their personal investigation.
The organizations have 1.two million electric and 560,000 gas consumers. They haven’t mentioned how many accounts might have been compromised.
