US and Canadian court data exposed in Thomson Reuters breach
A breach at Thomson Reuters exposed sensitive court data, including names, Social Security numbers, and driver’s license information, affecting courts in at least 12 U.S. states and Canada. The company discovered the unauthorized access in June, and while the attackers were present in the system until June, some data may have already been publicly available. Thomson Reuters is offering affected individuals 12 months of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection.
A breach of a Thomson Reuters records platform, specifically C-Track, a court case management platform, has exposed sensitive court data. The company publicly disclosed the breach on Wednesday, stating that unauthorized activity was detected on June 30th. The investigation, conducted with outside cybersecurity experts and law enforcement, revealed that an attacker gained access to certain C-Track files in March.
Thomson Reuters has not yet identified the attacker or how the breach occurred, but the company confirmed that the incident did not disrupt C-Track’s operations. Affected courts include appellate courts in Alabama, Kentucky, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wyoming, alongside several Pennsylvania courts, 10 Ohio district courts of appeals, and the U.S. Virgin Islands Supreme Court and Superior Court.
Court systems in Oregon, Ontario and Montana have separately confirmed their involvement. Montana officials indicated that much of the exposed data was already publicly available, though some driver’s license numbers and dates of birth were also compromised. Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General was notified on July 23rd, along with the chief justices of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, Superior Court of Justice and Ontario Court of Justice, who stated that the exact scope of the breach remains unclear.
Thomson Reuters is offering affected individuals 12 months of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection. The company has implemented new security measures, which were reviewed and approved by external experts.