Hackers who breached U.S. insurance giant Allianz Life earlier this month stole reams of customer Social Security numbers, according to notifications filed with several U.S. states and seen by TechCrunch.
Allianz Life disclosed the July 16 breach this past weekend, confirming to TechCrunch the unidentified hackers stole the personally identifiable information belonging to the “majority” of its 1.4 million customers, as well as financial professionals and some Allianz Life employees.
The company said its customer relationship database was compromised in a social engineering attack, a ploy in which malicious hackers use deception tricks, such as impersonating an employee claiming to have lost their password, to convince helpdesks into granting them access to a system or network.
Dispatches From The Front 