Allianz Life data breach affects 1.1 million customers
The July data breach at U.S. insurance giant Allianz Life allowed hackers to steal the personal information of 1.1 million customers, according to data breach notification site Have I Been Pwned.
Allianz Life disclosed the data breach in late July, confirming that hackers stole the personal information of the “majority” of its 1.4 million customers and its employees from a cloud-stored customer relationship database. Allianz has so far refused to confirm exactly how many people are affected by the breach.
Have I Been Pwned, a data breach notification site that alerts people when their email address has been caught up in data breaches, said in a post on Monday the Allianz Life breach includes customers’ names, gender, date of birth, email and home addresses, and phone numbers from a database hosted by cloud giant Salesforce.
Allianz Life later told the states of Texas and Massachusetts the hackers also stole Social Security numbers in the breach.
Brett Weinberg, a spokesperson for Allianz Life, declined to comment to TechCrunch as the company’s investigation is ongoing.
Allianz Life is one of a series of tech and corporate giants that have been targeted in recent months by a hacking crew known as ShinyHunters, a group known for their social engineering skills aimed at tricking employees into granting them access to the company’s databases.
Google, Cisco, airline giant Qantas, and retailer Pandora — and also HR giant Workday, as reported by TechCrunch on Monday — have also reported recent data thefts related to their Salesforce-hosted data.
The ShinyHunters gang is said to be preparing a data leak site in an attempt to extort victims into paying the hackers to delete the data, a tactic often employed by ransomware gangs. The group reportedly overlaps with other hacking and crime groups, including Scattered Spider and The Com, a known collective of cybercriminals who use hacking, extortion, and sometimes threats of violence to break into networks.
We’re always looking to evolve, and by providing some insight into your perspective and feedback into TechCrunch and our coverage and events, you can help us! Fill out this survey to let us know how we’re doing and get the chance to win a prize in return!
Zack Whittaker is the security editor at TechCrunch. He can be reached via encrypted message at zackwhittaker.1337 on Signal. You can also contact him by email, or to verify outreach, at zack.whittaker@techcrunch.com.
