Nova Scotia’s minister of cybersecurity estimates that 100,000 people have had personal information stolen as a result of a privacy breach to a third-party file transfer system used by the province.
Colton LeBlanc says a government investigation indicates social insurance numbers, addresses and banking information of current employees of the public service, including Nova Scotia Health and the IWK hospital, were taken.
LeBlanc says some information may also have been stolen from former public service employees.
He says the information was shared through the MOVEit file transfer service, which the province uses to transfer employee payroll information.
LeBlanc says the exact number of people affected could be higher or lower, depending what the investigation uncovers.
The minister says the province is working as quickly as it can to contact those affected and will be offering them a credit monitoring service, although LeBlanc is also urging people to look for suspicious transactions and to contact their banks.
