Palo Alto Networks, the renowned cyber security firm, has suffered an unusual data breach in which personal details of not just present but former employees also had their data breached. What made things a lot more embarrassing for the Santa Clara, California-based firm is that the data (which included employees’ Social Security Numbers too) has been leaked online.
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According to reports, Palo Alto Networks’ security was breached in February 2019 and the data was posted online unintentionally by a third-party vendor associated with the firm. A former employee of the company disclosed the news of the data breach, claims Business Insider which is the first media outlet to report about the incident.
In its report, Business Insider noted that exclusive private details of company employees are part of the breached database including their names and dates of birth.
The data breach was confirmed by Palo Alto Networks. The company revealed that personal data of around 7 employees got breached and the said vendor’s contract was terminated as soon as the erring was identified. However, the company chose not to disclose the name of the third-party vendor.
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The incident has been reported to the concerned authorities and the company has notified “impacted individuals” as well. A Palo Alto Networks’ spokesperson stated that,
“They take the protection of our employees’ information very seriously and have taken steps to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.”
Only a few days back Trend Micro confirmed that a “malicious insider” accessed its internal systems using “fraudulent means” stole and sold personal data (including names, email IDs, and company ticket numbers) of around 68,000 customers to unknown third party. Trend Micro immediately disabled the unauthorized access to its accounts and also terminated the said employee while official investigations are still underway.
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