2017 saw the most private company security breaches, according to Alberta’s privacy commissioner, since it became law to report them in our province eight years ago.
Last year there were 162 times when the privacy commissioner felt a security breach at a private company had a real risk of significant harm to customers. Some of these breaches affected single individuals, while others put over 100,000 Albertans’ information at risk.
Last month over 100,000 accounts were accessed illegally through Canadian Tire’s system, over 16,000 of which were in Alberta, but the security risks are not limited to just Canadian Tire. Last year 100,000 Walmart customers in Alberta also had their private information stolen.
“They have one password that's been compromised,” says Rachel Hayward who compiles the cases for the privacy commissioner, “and then they use it for another site, such as a loyalty program as an example. Then the malicious attacker is able to then get in, and we are seeing more of that sort of activity.”
According to the office of the information and privacy commissioner of Alberta, all of these well-known companies had a significant breach last year:
- Walmart
- Intercontinental hotels
- Canadian tire
- Loblaw
- McDonald’s
- Car2go
- Manulife
- Indigo
- Servus credit union
- Money mart
- U.F.A.
Staff estimates those incidents put more than 300,000 Albertans at risk in 2017.
