Petco has said that customers’ personal information has been disclosed in a data breach.
When the company first announced the security issue last week, it just said that personal information was affected, but on Friday, a legal filing disclosed that it was customers’ names, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, financial information, including account numbers, credit/debit card numbers and dates of birth, TechCrunch reported.
According to documents on the California Attorney General’s website, the breach happened in July.
The company did not say how many customers were affected, but filed legal paperwork in Texas, California, Massachusetts and Montana.
Click here to read a sample letter sent to consumers in Massachusetts, here to read one for those in Montana and here to read the California letter.
In Massachusetts, there was one person affected, while in Montana, there were three. In California, there must be at least 500 people affected to file such paperwork.
A company spokesperson told TechCrunch that it has informed affected customers. Petco had “provided further information to individuals whose information was involved,” Ventura Olevra said.
The California attorney general’s office shared a sample letter similar to ones sent to customers which said there was a problem with “a setting within one of our software applications that inadvertently allowed certain files to be accessible online,” but that the company “immediately took steps to correct the issue and to remove the files from further online access.” It also corrected the setting and rolled out more security measures, but did not go into detail.
It is also offering free credit monitoring and identity theft protection to affected customers in California, Massachusetts and Montana. It is not clear if Texas customers will also have free access to the services, TechCrunch reported.
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