All employees with Utah-based Sorenson Communications, and a branch named CaptionCall, are being notified that their personal information – including Social Security numbers – may have been compromised after the data was accessed in an attack on an unnamed payroll vendor.
How many victims? Undisclosed. Sorenson Communications and CaptionCall are said to employ thousands of employees.
What type of personal information? Names, addresses, dates of birth, Sorenson income histories, Social Security numbers, W-2 information, and emergency contact data.
What happened? Hackers carried out several attacks against a payroll vendor for Sorenson and CaptionCall and were able to gain unauthorized access to the personal information.
What was the response? An investigation is ongoing with the FBI and IRS. Sorenson has increased security. All employees are being notified and offered a free year of credit monitoring and identity theft protection services.
Details: Sorenson determined on March 7 that its payroll vendor was attacked between Feb. 20 and March 3. Employees were notified on March 11 of unauthorized access to Sorenson employee information, and received follow-up information on March 21.
Quote: “The personal information accessed affects you as well as your beneficiaries, dependants, and emergency contacts,” Joe Tate, vice president of human resources with Sorenson, wrote in the notification. “At this time, Sorenson has no evidence that employees' banking information was exposed.”
Source: atg.state.vt.us, “Important Security Alert and Urgent Action Items From Sorenson Communications,” March 21, 2014.
