Thousands of customers of Fidelity Investments were affected by a major data breach that occurred in August, reports InvestmentNews.
The company disclosed the breach recently in regulatory filings with the attorney generals of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. According to the disclosure, sensitive personal information of over 77,000 customers was compromised, including Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, and other data.
The breach was carried out by a third party using two newly established customer accounts. It took place between August 17–19, with Fidelity becoming aware of the activity on Aug. 19, according to a company spokesperson. Fidelity stopped access to the third party who had breached the accounts on Aug. 19th, and subsequently launched an investigation with assistance from external security experts.
“We detected this activity on August 19 and immediately took steps to terminate the access,” Fidelity said in a letter giving notice to its impacted customers. The firm emphasized that no Fidelity customer accounts were accessed as part of the incident.
A spokesperson for Fidelity said customers whose accounts were compromised will be offered free credit monitoring.
A separate data breach notice filed with New Hampshire’s attorney general revealed that the attackers “accessed and retrieved certain documents” related to customers through fraudulent requests to an internal database. This database contained images of various documents tied to Fidelity customers and other individuals.
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