The Coca-Cola Company announced a data breach today possibly affecting about 8,000 workers due to a former employee having in their possession an external hard drive containing employee personal data.
Bleeping Computer is reporting that Coca-Cola was told by law enforcement officials in September 2017 that a former staffer of a company subsidiary had been found with the drive in his or her possession. The company said it has been working with the police to investigate the data contained on the hard drive and found there was some PII included.
"We are issuing data breach notices to about 8,000 individuals whose personal information was included in computer files that a former employee took with him when he left the company. We do not have any information to suggest that the information was used to commit identity theft, a Coca-Cola spokesperson told SC Media in an emailed statement.
The announcement was kept under wraps at the request of the police.
The type of PII found was not revealed, but the company is sending a notification out to about 8,000 people informing them their data may have been compromised, although at this point it does not appear any of the PII has been used maliciously, Bleeping Computer reported.
Sun Trust Bank suffered a similar problem earlier this month when it confirmed it was hit with an insider attack when a former employee, working with a third party, stole company contact lists possibly exposing the personal information of up to 1.5 million customers.
