At True North Payments, we value our clients business and respect the privacy of their information, which is why, in keeping with best practices and standards we are publishing a notice of a Data Breach we suffered at the hands of a hacker, which may have impacted some clients personal information.
On July 2, 2019 between 12:00 AM and 2:00 AM local time (Vancouver), one of the Google accounts used for our business was hacked. While the account was protected both by password and 2FA, the hacker managed to gain control of the account for several hours. The hacker attempted to extort money from us in exchange for their silence on the matter, but as per our fundamental ethics and integrity, we refused to partake in any kind of ‘cover-up’.
Data accessed may have included names, email addresses, email correspondence between ourselves and some of our clients, and other client data. We are confident that no payment card data was exposed, although some other forms of private data were.
Fortunately, we became aware of the breach in good time and were able to take immediate steps to regain control of the account. We locked down the account and immediately implemented our data breach protocols for such cases which includes complete resets and wipes of all computers on the network, a network test to ensure it is not compromised, and various other measures.
As per our privacy policy, The security of your data is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
True North Payments values your privacy and deeply regrets that this incident occurred. Be assured that we are conducting a thorough review of all similar accounts and are upgrading our security protocols including more complex long passwords in addition to the already implemented standard two-factor authentication measures.
We want our clients to know that we have taken all necessary steps to implement security measures that are designed to prevent a recurrence of such an attack. We also will work tirelessly to ensure that we continue to protect and respect the privacy of True North Payments’ valued clients
We have reported the breach to the authorities including the police and leave the matter with them.
For any further information and assistance, or if you have any concerns please contact us here.
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