Altice USA Hit By Email Scam Leaking Thousands of Employees' and Customers' Data

• The breach leaked the Social Security numbers, birth dates and other personal information of employees and customers.
• Altice had nearly 5 million residential and business customers in December.

A phishing scam hit Altice USA Inc., the provider of Optimum cable television and internet services, spilling all 12,000 current employees as well as some former employees and a small number of customer records.

What happened?

Altice official said that the breach occurred in November where an unauthorized third party gained access to an official email account credentials.

• The stolen credentials were used to remotely access and download the contents of mailboxes.
• The victims affected by the data breach were notified and told that “no information at this time that would indicate that your personal information has been misused.”

“During our investigation, we learned in January 2020 that certain downloaded mailboxes contained password-protected reports that included personal information for current employees and some former employees," Lisa Anselmo, a spokeswoman for Altice told Newsday. "A limited number of customers were also included.”

Reaction and other details

Altice USA has reported the breach incident to federal law enforcement agencies.

• The email accounts were secured and the firm is now planning to train all employees in how to recognize and avoid phishing emails.
• The company will be offering free identity and credit monitoring for one year from the credit reporting service Experian. To be applied by the victims before April 30, 2020.
• As per the spokesperson, no financial information was included in the hacked material.
• No details so far on the exact number of customers affected. By December 2018, Altice had nearly 5 million residential and business customers, according to a securities filing.

About Altice

Altice was formed after Altice N.V. of the Netherlands purchased Cablevision Systems Corp. of Bethpage in 2016 for $17.7 billion. It has a large operations center in Bethpage and the company had about 12,000 employees across 21 states as of December 2018.