Telecom company, Frontier Communications, recently faced a ransomware attack that exposed the personally identifiable information (PII) of more than 750,000 users. The breach was detected on April 14.
The company took immediate action to secure its systems, however, affected users had to wait over two months for the company to notify them of the incident. No reason was given for the delay.
“We understand the concern this incident may cause our customers,” the notification read.
“We acted quickly to contain the incident and protect our users’ data,” a company spokesperson said.
Important details of the attack are currently unknown, but we do know that RansomHub has claimed credit for the April 13 attack. They claim to have obtained the records of several million users, rather than the 500,000 number that Frontier claims.
Note, that this may not mean either party is lying. Oftentimes, companies only report on the number of users who could be affected by the breach and do not count out-of-date or irrelevant records. On the other hand, a hacker might be keen to inflate their numbers by including these less important records in their final count.
Following the attack, Frontier launched an effort to secure its systems, including informing law enforcement agencies, hiring cybersecurity experts to review the breach, and fixing the vulnerability that led to the ransom.
Currently, a full investigation is taking place, which some researchers believe could have caused the delay in informing customers.
“Our primary focus was to secure our systems and minimize any potential harm to our customers,” Frontier states. “We are committed to understanding how this breach occurred and taking all necessary steps to prevent future incidents.”
As of now, Frontier does not believe that the attack will cause any serious financial harm or disrupt its operations. Frontier is also offering one year of free credit monitoring to all affected customers.