A Waterloo insurance company says it was recently the victim of a data breach.
Heartland Farm Mutual CEO Louis Durocher issued a statement to Global News on Monday that said the incident could have involved unauthorized access to an employee’s email, which contained personal information held by the company. The company did not specify when the incident took place.
“Our investigation revealed that the incident may have exposed a small number of individuals’ personal information,” the statement said.
The company says it is unaware of any misuse of the information and that it has reached out to the affected clients with an offer to cover the cost of credit monitoring for a year.
“Protecting personal information is a top priority for us,” Durocher said. “Immediately upon learning of the incident, we took a number of steps to block the unauthorized access and secure the information.”
He says the company hired an outside company to investigate the incident and that it has notified the “appropriate authorities.”
The company also offered an apology to its clients.
“We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused,” he said. “Heartland Farm Mutual Inc. is committed to further improving its security in order to prevent this from happening again.”
The company, which is based in Waterloo, Ont., was created in 2016 by the merger of North Waterloo Farmers Mutual and Oxford Mutual.