[BreachExchange] Info of 27.7 million Texas drivers exposed in Vertafore data breach

[Destry Winant]

https://www.zdnet.com/article/info-of-27-7-million-texas-drivers-exposed-in-vertafore-data-breach/

Vertafore, a provider of insurance software, has disclosed this week a
data breach, admitting that a third-party accessed the details of 27.7
million Texas drivers.

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The incident is believed to have taken place sometime between March 11
and August 1, and happened as a result of human error when three data
files were inadvertently stored in an unsecured external storage
service.

Vertafore said the files were removed from the external storage
system, but after an investigation, they discovered that the files had
been accessed without authorization.

According to the software provider, the three files contained
information on driver's licenses issued before February 2019, which
the company was using for its insurance rating software solution.

Exposed data included Texas driver license numbers, names, dates of
birth, addresses, and vehicle registration histories.

Social Security numbers or financial account information was not
included, Vertafore said in a data breach notification published on
its website this week.

Vertafore said it notified relevant authorities about the security
breach, including the Texas Attorney General, the Texas Department of
Public Safety, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, and federal law
enforcement.

An investigation is underway. The company is now also notifying Texas
drivers whose data was exposed in the breach.

Vertafore said it has worked with an intelligence firm but has not
found any evidence that the leaked data has been abused or misused.

"Although that firm did not find any evidence, to be considerate of
all Texas driver license recipients and out of an abundance of
caution, Vertafore is offering them one year of free credit monitoring
and identity restoration services in recognition that these services
offer valuable protection in other contexts beyond this event,"
Vertafore said.

Still, Texas drivers aren't the only ones dealing with a data breach
that exposed their personal information these days. The information of
thousands of New South Wales driver's license holders was also exposed
in Australia in September after more than 100,000 images were
similarly left in an unsecured Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud storage
folder.