Nova Scotia Power CEO, staff grilled by politicians over cybersecurity breach

Provincial politicians took aim at Nova Scotia Power during a legislative committee meeting Wednesday morning, saying the utility owes ratepayers answers after a cybersecurity breach gave thieves access to data belonging to 280,000 customers.

The utility’s CEO and other staff were grilled by the public accounts committee about how the breach happened and what the company will do to protect its customers from financial harm.

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Nova Scotia Power CEO Peter Gregg says the ransomware attack affected almost half of the utility’s customers, including 140,000 customers who had given the utility their social insurance numbers.

Chris Heck, chief digital officer with Nova Scotia Power’s parent company Emera, told the committee that the company identified unusual activity on their server on April 25, but later determined the cyber-thieves had accessed the system as early as March 19.

NDP Leader Claudia Chender pressed the two men to explain why Nova Scotia Power had been storing the social insurance numbers, but they declined to say, citing an ongoing investigation.

Meanwhile, the federal privacy commissioner has launched an investigation into the ransomware attack, with Philippe Dufresne saying in a statement last week he started the probe after receiving complaints about the security breach reported in late April.