WESTLOCK—In late January, the Town of Westlock experienced a cybersecurity incident involving residents' personal information.
In a statement released early Friday afternoon, May 31, Town of Westlock CAO Simone Wiley said the town acted quickly as soon as they learned personal information was impacted and “conducted an exhaustive, manual review of the impacted data to identify impacted individuals and the specific types of personal information involved.”
That intensive process spanned several weeks.
“On January 31, 2024, we detected a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to a portion of our IT infrastructure,” said Wiley.
“We acted immediately to secure our network and data from further unauthorized activity and engaged third-party cybersecurity experts to contain and remediate the breach and perform a forensic investigation to determine the nature and extent of the incident.”
In a follow-up email Friday, Town of Westlock communications and marketing coordinator, Debbie Mottus, confirmed a total of 1,633 residents were impacted, that included both individuals and businesses who participate in the pre-authorized payment plan and businesses and employees who used EFT.
Wiley said the town contacted those directly affected by this incident and are providing credit monitoring and identity protection services to support those residents affected.
“Additionally, we have implemented enhanced security measures to strengthen our defences and to better protect against future incidents,” Wiley added, noting they are working with legal advisors and have reported the incident to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta.
“We take the security of personal information seriously and deeply regret any inconvenience or concern this incident may have caused,” said Wiley. “We appreciate your patience and understanding as we navigate this incident.”
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