Security News > 2021 > April > Auto Insurance Giant GEICO Discloses Data Breach
American auto insurance provider GEICO has disclosed a cyber-incident that resulted in driver's license numbers being compromised.
A wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, the Government Employees Insurance Company is the second largest car insurer in the United States, but also offers property insurance.
In a data breach notification to impacted individuals, the company reveals that, between January 21 and March 1, 2021, using customer information acquired elsewhere, fraudsters managed to gain unauthorized access to driver's license numbers by abusing the online sales system on Geico's website.
"We have reason to believe that this information could be used to fraudulently apply for unemployment benefits in your name," Geico says in a breach notification submitted to the website of California's Attorney General last week.
According to the company, no other information related to its customers has been compromised in the incident, and there's no saying whether the stolen data will indeed be used fraudulently, but users should still remain vigilant.
Geico hasn't provided information on the number of affected customers.
News URL
Related news
- Free, France’s second largest ISP, confirms data breach after leak (source)
- Interbank confirms data breach following failed extortion, data leak (source)
- How to Effectively Manage a Data Breach (source)
- Amazon confirms employee data breach after vendor hack (source)
- HIBP notifies 57 million people of Hot Topic data breach (source)
- US space tech giant Maxar discloses employee data breach (source)
- Fintech giant Finastra investigates data breach after SFTP hack (source)
- Bologna FC confirms data breach after RansomHub ransomware attack (source)
- Rhode Island confirms data breach after Brain Cipher ransomware attack (source)
- Texas Tech University System data breach impacts 1.4 million patients (source)