Private data of tens of thousands of individuals were stolen in a recent cyber attack, the Nova Scotia government disclosed on Friday.
The province provided information regarding 94,574 of the compromised records, which include those of high school students, owners of short-term accommodations, newborns, and individuals who have received parking tickets in the Halifax Regional Municipality.
Current and former employees of Nova Scotia Health, the IWK Health Centre, and the provincial civil service were also affected by the breach, according to Colton LeBlanc, minister of cyber security and digital solutions.
Speaking during a virtual press briefing on Friday, LeBlanc said all individuals whose information was compromised will be notified via mail or email.
Given the possibility of multiple breaches affecting the same person, some individuals may also receive multiple notifications.
“We have discovered throughout our investigation that one individual could have been impacted by [multiple] breaches,” said LeBlanc. “For example, a teacher may have also been a former civil service employee and might have received a parking ticket in HRM.”
The minister also confirmed that the ransomware group suspected to be behind the data theft had not contacted the province to extort money.
“The organization that has claimed to be leading this cyber attack is a group of organized criminals,” LeBlanc said, per CBC News. “The day that government starts doing business with organized crime we [would] certainly have to be reconsidering our priorities as a province.”
The hacker group claiming responsibility for the attack previously said that all the data stolen from government systems have already been deleted. The group said it has “no interest to expose such information,” but warned private companies that they have until June 14 to initiate negotiations for ransom.
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