After disclosing a data breach in February, Prudential Financial, a global financial services company, has revealed that more than 2.5 million people were compromised by the attack.
An 8-K form filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said that Prudential detected the incident a day after a suspected e-crime group breached its systems and gained access to employee and contractor accounts and admin/user data. Prudential had initially said that 36,000 insurance companies had been impacted by the breach.
The Prudential Insurance Company of America filed a notice with the Maine Attorney General’s Office last week, which revealed that the stolen information consists of names, identification card numbers, addresses and diver’s license numbers.
The filing said, “Through the investigation, we learned that the unauthorized third party gained access to our network on February 4, 2024, and removed a small percentage of personal information from our systems.” It further stated that the company has worked with cybersecurity experts to ensure the unauthorised group does not continue to access their system.
Prudential updated the information shared with the Maine Attorney General’s Office about the data breach in February, now saying that 2,556,210 individuals were affected by the breach. The company has yet to comment on the change in victim count.
While Prudential has not yet shared further information on the cybercriminals responsible for the February 2024 data breach, the ALPHV/Blackcat ransomware group claimed the attack on Feb 13.
ALPHV conducted an exit scam on Notchy, stealing $22 million as ransom and shutting down its servers. The FBI affiliated the ransomware group with over 60 breaches worldwide for its four months of activity and claimed that ALPHV took at least from more than 1,000 targets until September 2023.
The personal data of an additional 3,20,000 Prudential customers, consisting of names, phone numbers, date of birth, addresses and social security numbers, was also compromised when the Clop cybercrime group breached the MOVEit Transfer file-sharing platform of a third-party vendor, Pension Benefit Information, handling the data.
Prudential is one of the largest insurance companies in the United States, with revenue of over $50 billion in 2023. It has around 40,000 employees worldwide.
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