Parasol -Lessons Learned from Breach

We reported last week about Payroll Umbrella firm Parasol and an encryption attack that caused it to shut down its operations (leaving many contractors unpaid) while it went through its Disaster Recovery with seemingly little in the way of preparation for Business Continuity.

Having initially reported that they did not think any data had been compromised, this week it has emerged that 167 Gb’s of the firms data were extracted as part of the attack and are now dumped on the Dark Web courtesy of a known gang called Vice Society. Several of the Contractors on Parasols Payroll have been digging through what is available from the thousands of files belonging to the company and its subsidiaries.

They report that some of the 350,000 records are now exposed dating back to 2009 and any contractor who has used Parasol in this time has every reason to be concerned that Personal Information and sensitive financial information may now be in the hands of criminals. From what they have reported this includes the names and addresses of contractors, identity documents, national insurance numbers, payslips, salary information, employment contracts and company accounts. Data documenting staff sickness and training records have also been found in the data dump. Potentially this affects 28,000 freelancers in the UK.

It has taken Parasol some 5 weeks to identify the data leak and still its contractors have not been informed as to exactly what data has been stolen.

Meanwhile, London based law firm Keller Lenkner are now seeking compensation for those affected and are gathering clients for a class action.

We will continue to monitor this incident as it is a fantastic example of what can go wrong when Information Security fails and compromises Privacy.