Who Breached: Davidson Companies
Number Affected: 226,000
Information breached: Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers
How: hacker

A hacker has attacked a database at Davidson Companies and obtained the names, Social Security Numbers and account numbers of 226,000 Great Falls financial services clients. No information has been provided on the time period over which this data was accessed.

Spokeswoman for Davidson Companies, Jacquie Burchard, says that the hacker did not get access to any bank accounts. However, there is persistent risk for identity theft and for fraud.

“Despite our efforts to safeguard client information, a computer hacker using sophisticated techniques illegally accessed a database and obtained access to confidential client information,” said William A. Johnstone, Davidson Companies president and CEO

Clients have been sent letters asking them to pay attention to unusual activity in their bank accounts, monitor for unauthorized charges on credit cards, and place fraud alerts on their credit files. Credit monitoring is being offered for one year. More information for clients can be found here.

Davidson proactively hired a penetration testing company in September of 2007, and no holes were found by those ‘hired hackers.’ Unfortunately, some means of access were found since that time. The company response has been up-front about the stress and uncertainty this causes to clients.

Via great falls tribune & information week Tags: davidson companies, data breach, identity theft, id theft, bank security, business security, database, hackers