Verizon Communications has issued a warning regarding an insider data breach that has affected nearly half of its employees, resulting in the exposure of sensitive personal information.
As an American telecommunications and mass media corporation, Verizon delivers cable TV, telecommunications, and internet services to a vast network of over 150 million subscribers nationwide. With a workforce of 117,000 employees and an impressive annual revenue of 136.8 billion (2022), the company continues to thrive in its industry.
According to a data breach notification sent to the Office of the Maine Attorney General, an employee at Verizon accessed a file containing confidential employee data without authorization on September 21, 2023.
The breach was uncovered by Verizon on December 12, 2023, almost three months after the incident occurred. It was found to contain sensitive information belonging to 63,206 employees.
The data that was exposed varies per employee but could include:
Full name
Physical address
Social Security number (SSN)
National ID
Gender
Union affiliation
Date of birth
Compensation information
Despite the occurrence, customer information does not seem to be affected by this incident.
Verizon assures that it is taking significant measures to bolster its internal security and prevent any future occurrences of this nature. The company also confirms that there are currently no indications of any malicious exploitation or widespread leakage of the data.
Currently, we do not have any proof that the information has been misused or disclosed beyond Verizon due to this issue, as stated in the data breach notice from Verizon.
Our team is actively improving our technical controls to prevent a recurrence of this situation, and we are informing the relevant regulators about the issue at hand.
In an effort to safeguard those who have been affected by the security incident, Verizon has included enrollment instructions for a two-year identity theft protection and credit monitoring service in the notices sent to impacted employees.
