MINNEAPOLISH Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America acknowledged on Saturday that hackers had obtained personal information on most of its 1.4 million customers.
The data breach, according to Minneapolis-based Allianz Life, a division of Munich, Germany-based Allianz SE, occurred on July 16 when a malevolent threat actor obtained access to a third-party cloud-based system that the business employed.
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Using a social engineering method, the threat actor was able to gather personally identifiable information about most of Allianz Life’s clients, financial professionals, and a few Allianz Life staff, the company stated in a statement. “We took immediate action to contain and mitigate the issue and notified the FBI.”
According to the corporation, only the third-party’s platform was accessed, not its own systems.
According to Allianz Life, the business has started contacting the affected parties and noted that their investigation is still underway. It stated that other Allianz business organizations are not involved in the situation; just Allianz Life in the United States is.
In the case of data breaches, a social engineering technique usually involves using trickery to gain access. Spokesman Brett Weinberg stated that as the investigation is ongoing, he was unable to share specifics.
The incident was also reported by Allianz Life to the Attorney General’s Office in Maine, among other authorities. According to a document posted on the agency’s website, the organization found out about the breach the day after it occurred and will provide 24 months of credit monitoring and identity theft protection to anybody impacted.
Prior to being purchased by the German company Allianz SE in 1979, Allianz Life was known as North American Life and Casualty. After that, it was renamed Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America. According to its website, it employs close to 2,000 people in the United States, the majority of whom are based in Minnesota.
The Munich-based global financial services company Allianz SE, which claims to serve over 125 million clients globally, has five North American subsidiaries.
