Ride the Lightning

Law Firm Data Breach Results in Exposure of Google Employees’ Data

October 28, 2020

TechCrunch reported on October 27 that immigration law firm Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy has confirmed a data breach involving the personal information of current and former Google employees.

New York-based Fragomen provides companies with employment verification screening services to determine if employees are eligible and authorized to work in the United States. Fragoman has over 580 attorneys in 47 locations worldwide.

US companies are required to maintain a Form I-9 file on every employee to ensure that they are legally allowed to work and not subject to more restrictive immigration rules. The downside is that Form I-9 files often contain a lot of sensitive information, including government documents like passports, ID cards and driver's licenses, and other personally identifiable data, thus a target for hackers and identity thieves.

The law firm said it discovered last month that an unauthorized third-party accessed a file containing personal information on a "limited number" of current and former Google employees. A spokesman for the law firm declined to say how many Google employees were impacted.

In a notice filed with the California attorney general's office, Fragomen did not say what kind of data was accessed or how many Google employees were affected. Companies with more than 500 California residents affected by a breach are required to submit a notice with the state's attorney general's office.

I guess that tells us what the minimum number of impacted employees might be.

Hat tip to Dave Ries.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
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Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
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