A data breach this past June at Canada’s Desjardins Group was apparently worse than initially reported.
Quebec Finance Minister Eric Girard now says that all the financial cooperative’s 4.2 million members were impacted by the data breach, a situation that is motivating the provincial government in Quebec to undertake reforms that will protect personal information in the French-speaking province.
Quebec’s securities watchdog, the Autorité des marchés financiers, said that it had been advised by police that the leak was more significant than originally announced. Finance Minister Girard said the province will take steps to improve cybersecurity and the protection of personal information in the wake of the massive loss of people’s personal information.
Montreal-based Desjardins said in June that unauthorized use of internal data by an employee led to the breach of personal information, including social insurance numbers, addresses and details of people’s banking habits. Originally, the breach was said to have exposed the information of 2.9 million members. Now, the financial group acknowledges that all 4.2 million of its customers have been impacted.
