A South Portland nonprofit that provides services for people with intellectual disabilities said Monday there may have been a public breach in its confidential data. But two months after discovering the potential risk, the organization isn’t saying much else.
PSL Services, also known as Peregrine Corp., told Mainebiz that personal data including names and medical information may have been accessed illicitly. The company said multiple employee email accounts, potentially containing sensitive information, were accessed without authorization between Dec. 16 and Dec. 19, 2019.
PSL would not speculate who might have accessed them, but said in an email "it is likely that the cyber criminal was looking for our agency to send funds electronically, which we did not."
Despite repeated inquiries, PSL did not disclose the number of people who may have been affected or other details, pending further investigation.
“The contents of a small number of email accounts were exposed,” said Lori Sanville, executive director, on Monday night. “The number is unknown until the data mining is completed. We will then contact anyone affected.”
PSL learned of the potential data breach on Dec. 17, after noticing suspicious activity in an employee email account, according to a news release. PSL said it then notified its information services firm.
Among the information that may have been accessed inappropriately were names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, medical information and identifying numbers for participation in Maine’s Medicaid health benefits program, MaineCare.
In addition to not saying how many people might be affected, PSL did not respond to questions about whether the individuals were clients, family members, employees or others.
The agency did not publicly reveal the potential breach until distributing the release on a website at 5 p.m. ..
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