City’s Privacy Breach Handed Over to Provincial Privacy Commissioner

Exploit: Data Breach, Unauthorized Database Access
Company: City of Corner Brook
Industry: Government, Municipality
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/corner-brook-privacy-1.5429593

The city of Corner Brook has handed over the reigns of an investigation to the province’s privacy commissioner after a data breach to the city’s website occurred. City officials have noted that they are not sure if private information was viewed, but they do know that there was four counts of unauthorized access by different users. The information includes dates of birth and addresses of voters for 10,000 people.

The OPC has stated that it is too early to tell what the next steps are and they may need to talk more with the city before further action is taken. "We have the breach notification, and one of our analysts is reviewing it now and we may very well be going back to the city with some further questions," said Sean Murray, director of research and quality assurance with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

Although this appears to be a low risk breach, there needs to be a strict policy implemented to unearth possible internal/external vulnerabilities as well as further preventative measures to improve user activity warnings. We will see how the investigation progresses and whether the compromised data ends up on the Dark Web or if it is used by the hackers themselves.

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