Coca-Cola data breach has affected about 8,000 workers

Coca-Cola discovered a security breach in September when law enforcement officials notified it that a former employee at a Coca-Cola subsidiary was found in possession of an external hard drive containing worker data.

Coca-Cola announced a data breach after a former employee was found in possession of worker data on a personal hard drive. In compliance with state laws, the company is notifying the data breach to the affected employees via letter.

The company discovered the security breach in September when law enforcement officials notified it that a former employee at a Coca-Cola subsidiary was found in possession of an external hard drive.

Coca-Cola supported the investigation conducted by law enforcement, it confirmed the authenticity of the documents that contained personal information of some workers.

The company did not disclose the incident immediately at the request of authorities who were investigating the data breach.

Following state laws, the company is now sending notification letters to affected employees.

According to a company spokesman, the data breach has affected about 8,000 workers.

“We are issuing data breach notices to about 8,000 individuals whose personal information was included in computer files that a former employee took with him when he left the company,” a company spokesperson told Bleeping Computer.

“We take information security very seriously, and we sympathize with everyone whose information may have been exposed. We regret any inconvenience or concern this may be causing them. We do not have any information to suggest that the information was used to commit identity theft.”

As usually happens in these cases, Coca-Cola is offering free identity monitoring for one year to affected employees.

Back in 2014, Coca-Cola warned some 74,000 employees and other individuals that their personal information was compromised due to the theft of several company laptops.

[adrotate banner=”9″]

[adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – cybercrime, data breach)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.