NationsBenefits, a Florida-based technology company, recently disclosed a data breach in which more than 7,100 New Hampshire residents’ personal information was stolen during the late-January Fortra ransomware attack. As a provider of supplemental benefits for health insurance members such as vision, hearing, and over-the-counter drugs, NationsBenefits had its customer information stored in the file transfer software tool, GoAnywhere, hosted by Fortra.
The Clop ransomware gang was responsible for the attack, also claiming to have stolen data on more than a hundred organizations. NationsBenefits’ statement on the breach, while confirming the data theft, did not provide details on the specific personal data stolen in the attack. However, the company is complying with all legal and commercial obligations related to the incident.
Colorado-based Fortra was criticized for its handling of the breach, which included hiding the details of the unknown vulnerability being used to raid GoAnywhere instances. Fortra patch the vulnerability after the breach and only recently acknowledged the incident with a blog post on Tuesday. According to the post, Fortra customers running their own on-premise servers were hacked almost two weeks before the breach of their hosted systems.
Rachel Woodford, spokesperson for Fortra, declined to comment beyond the blog post and did not provide details on how many customers were affected. NationsBenefits also did not disclose how many of its more than 20 million members across the United States were affected by the breach, when questioned by TechCrunch. Yet, the company took necessary steps to mitigate any potential harm done by the breach and is continuing to comply with all relevant laws and regulations regarding data protection.
