Car insurance provider Geico has suffered a data breach where threat actors stole the driver's licenses for policyholders for over a month.
Geico is the second-largest car insurance company in the United States, with over 17 million policies for more than 28 million vehicles.
In a data breach notification filed with the California Attorney General's office, Geico states that, for over a month, threat actors were abusing an online sales portal to gain access to policy holder's driver's license numbers.
"We recently determined that between January 21, 2021 and March 1, 2021, fraudsters used information about you – which they acquired elsewhere – to obtain unauthorized access to your driver’s license number through the online sales system on our website," says a Geico data breach notification first reported on by TechCrunch.
Geico states that the threat actors utilized customer information obtained elsewhere to pull up the info on policyholders but did not indicate what information was required to access the online sale's portal.
Geico believes that the threat actors plan to use the driver's license number to apply for unemployment benefits under the policy holder's name.
"We have reason to believe that this information could be used to fraudulently apply for unemployment benefits in your name. If you receive any mailings from your state’s unemployment agency/department, please review them carefully and contact that agency/department if there is any chance fraud is being committed," Geico explains.
Once they learned of the abuse, Geico says they secured the website and added additional safeguards to prevent further fraud or illegal activities.
For those affected, Geico is offering a free one-year subscription to an identity protection service.
Geico warns that affected users should look out for unexpected mailings from their state's unemployment agency. If any are received, they should immediately contact the agency and report it as possible fraud.
Comments
joshwenke - 3 years ago
It's ridiculous that companies like Geico can give you a year of identity monitoring, and walk away without a scratch. There should be fines based on a % of total revenue, or other penalties. This kind of negligent behavior from companies holding sensitive user data cannot be allowed to continue!
Some-Other-Guy - 3 years ago
That's too funny
An easier solution would be to not give them sensitive user data in the first place
Bet you never thought of that though did ya?
Even fining them out of existence would not fix the problem!
Your data is already gone and it's not coming back regardless of the fine
There is no fix for this after the damage is done!
sugatowng - 3 years ago
A couple things...
1. GEICO
2. Hackers gonna Hack.