Digital Forensics Dispatch

New England Energy Provider Eversource Experiences Data Breach Due to Unsecured Cloud Storage

April 22, 2021

Lawrence Abrams of BleepingComputer reports that Eversource Energy, a large energy supplier in the New England area, suffered a data breach. Eversource provides electric and natural gas to 4.3 million customers throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Eversource is currently notifying their customers about the breach, where the customer information exposed was “name, address, phone number, social security number, service address, and account number” Abrams writes.

“According to the FAQ shared with BleepingComputer, Eversource performed a security review on March 16^th”, Abrams writes. This security review found that on a server there was a cloud storage folder that was misconfigured. This misconfiguration allowed for anyone to access that folder and the data contained within.

Eversource has since secured the folder and began investigating what data was stored in that location. The investigation found that there were unencrypted files stored in that folder that contained information of 11,000 customers from Eastern MA. They were created in August of 2019. “At this time, Eversource states that there is no indication that any of this data was acquired or misused by unauthorized people.” the article states.

Eversource is offering its customers affected by the data breach a year of free identity monitoring services offered through Cyberscout. The BleepingComputer article provides some other information that may be beneficial to those affected by the breach and certain items to watch out for such as phishing emails that are masked as coming from Eversource.

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