GALVA, Ill., Nov. 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Although unaware of any misuse of anyone's information, Black Hawk College is providing notice of a recent incident experienced by an employee benefits administrator that provides employee benefits programs and plan administrative services to Black Hawk College. This incident may affect the security of information pertaining to certain current or former employees of Black Hawk College, not its students. The confidentiality, privacy, and security of information is one of Black Hawk College's highest priorities and Black Hawk College takes this incident very seriously.
What Happened? On or about January 14, 2021, Black Hawk College's employee benefits administrator, Consociate, Inc. d/b/a Consociate Health ("Consociate"), learned of unusual activity within its network environment. In response, Consociate took immediate steps to secure its systems. Consociate then promptly began an investigation into this activity. In so doing, Consociate engaged leading, independent cybersecurity experts to help with its response to, and investigation of, the unusual activity identified. Through this investigation, on February 9, 2021, Consociate learned that certain locally-stored files from a segregated file server may have been accessed or acquired without authorization. Consociate's core claims processing systems or platforms were not impacted.
On July 8, 2021, Consociate learned that the potentially impacted data contained information relating to individuals associated with certain of its business partners. Consociate then worked diligently to evaluate potentially impacted data elements, confirm identities of potentially impacted individuals, identify missing address information for potentially impacted individuals, and determine associated business partners for purposes of notifying of this incident. That process was completed on August 18, 2021. Consociate then worked diligently to notify Black Hawk College, amongst other partners, of this incident. Black Hawk College was first notified of this incident on October 11, 2021. Since then, Black Hawk College has worked with Consociate to identify current mailing addresses in order to notify individuals whose information was identified within the potentially impacted files.
What Information Was Involved? At this time, Consociate and Black Hawk College have no evidence that any potentially impacted information has been misused. Out of an abundance of caution, Black Hawk College requested that Consociate provide notification of this incident to the current or former employees whose names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and/or medical information may have been involved in the incident.
What Are We Doing? Once notified of this incident, Black Hawk College requested that Consociate provide notice to potentially affected individuals. Black Hawk College also requested that Consociate provide potentially affected individuals with information about steps that they can take to help protect their information. Additionally, Black Hawk College is notifying regulators as required.
Prior to learning that Black Hawk College information was potentially impacted, and as soon as this incident was discovered, Consociate immediately took the steps described above and took affirmative steps to minimize the likelihood of a similar incident occurring in the future. Consociate also reported the incident to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and will provide any cooperation necessary to hold the perpetrators accountable.
For More Information. Consociate has established a dedicated call center for individuals to contact with questions or concerns or to determine if they are impacted. This dedicated call center can be reached at 1-855-912-1241, from 8:00 AM – 5:30 pm Central Time, Monday through Friday. Black Hawk College recommends that potentially impacted individuals follow the recommendations in the letter they received and contact the call center with any questions.
SOURCE Black Hawk College
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