Hacker infiltrates Canadian electric company’s e-billing system
The Toronto Hydro electric company has begun notifying customers that someone illegally gained access to its e-billing system and viewed customer bills.How many victims? 179,000.
What type of personal information? Names, addresses and customer account numbers.
What happened? Toronto Hydro recently detected atypical activity in its e-billing system and determined that an intruder accessed a file that contained customer information. No financial information was compromised, David O'Brien, president and CEO of Toronto Hydro, told the Toronto Star.
Details: Toronto police are investigating.
Quote: "We saw some unusual activity on our systems, and whenever there is more than the normal use of our system, the system shuts down and notifies IT staff," O'Brien said.
What was the response? All 685,000 Toronto Hydro customers will receive an informational letter about the breach, but the letter will not indicate if their account information was accessed.
Source: TheStar.com, Toronto Star, “Toronto Hydro online accounts hacked,” July 29, 2009.
