The ransomware attack on EquiLend in January 2024 did result in customer data theft, the financial giant has confirmed.
The company sent a data breach notification letter to its customers earlier this week, confirming the theft of personally identifiable information (PII), BleepingComputer reports.
EquiLend is a global financial technology, data and analytics firm. Earlier this year, it published a press release saying that on January 22, its technicians identified a “technical issue that placed portions of our system offline.” Following an investigation, the company identified a cybersecurity incident in which unnamed threat actors gained unauthorized access. At the time, there was no evidence of data exfiltration.
Names, birth dates, and SSNs
A few days later, all of the company’s systems were restored. In the meantime, the infamous LockBit ransomware operation claimed responsibility for the attack, confirming it to Bloomberg.
Now, following a more thorough investigation, EquiLend is telling its customers what information LockBit’s affiliates stole:
"We are writing to inform you of a recent data security incident that involved your EquiLend payroll and other human resources information, including your name, date of birth and Social Security number," the company said.
EquiLend added that there is no evidence of the stolen information being used to commit identity theft or fraud, however, that is something that can change at any time. Hence, the company is providing affected employees with two years of free identity theft protection services through Identity Theft Guard Solutions (IDX).
EquiLend was established in 2001 by a group of global banks and broker-dealers, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BlackRock, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, National Bank of Canada, Northern Trust, State Street, and UBS. The company’s goal was to improve the efficiency of the securities finance industry and has, to that end, created a centralized platform for trading and post-trade services. EquiLend now operates a regulated platform called NGT that services more than $2.4 trillion in monthly transactions.
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