Cyberattack exposes information of 15 million LifeLabs customers in B.C. and Ontario
LifeLabs, the Canadian laboratory testing company at the centre of a cyberattack targeting millions of customers, says it has consulted with experts to retrieve customers’ sensitive information.
In a letter to its customers, LifeLabs wrote that it takes its responsibility seriously and has taken measures, after consulting with experts on cyberattacks, to retrieve the sensitive data by making a payment.
The letter does not indicate where the attack originated, nor does it say to whom the payment was made.
Earlier on Tuesday, Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia issued a statement about a breach affecting millions of LifeLabs customers.
Logins, passwords affected
According to the release, the names, addresses, email addresses, customer logins and passwords, health card numbers and lab test results of 15 million people in both Ontario and British Columbia were affected.
The laboratory reported the potential cyberattack to the two provincial offices on Nov. 1, according to the statement.
This isn’t the first incident involving Lifelabs computer systems. In January 2013, the medical information of thousands of patients in Kamloops, B.C., went missing.
It wasn’t until June that year that the company admitted it had lost track of a computer hard drive, which held the information of more than 16,000 patients.
The hard drive held the results of electrocardiograms gathered at three facilities between 2007 and 2013.
LifeLabs said privacy commissioners are already investigating the latest cyberattack, and while the company has taken steps over the years to strengthen its cyber defences, it will provide one free year of identity theft insurance, including dark web monitoring.
LifeLabs is Canada’s largest provider of general diagnostic and specialty laboratory testing services.
