Wings Financial Services Claims Over 240 Thousand Victims in Massive Data Breach

If you’re one of our avid readers, you may remember how over 2022’s black Friday season, many financial companies were targeted by hackers. That’s because of the abundance of information they stand to gain from the company’s databases. Financial companies, hospitals, and credit bureaus have access to large amounts of personally identifying information, or PII, that make the hacker’s financial future much happier and more stable. 

How Did the Attack Occur?

The attack occurred when an unauthorized third party accessed the company’s internal systems. Wings Financial Services immediately contacted the necessary authorities to ensure its safety and that of its clients. The investigation only took a few months and gathered a large amount of information.

What Information Was Viewed or Stolen?

After discovering the breach, Wings Financial began to investigate the breached files. It found that while the stolen data varied by victim, it may have included your:

• Name
• Social security number
• Medical data
• Insurance information
• Government ID
• State ID
• Driver’s license number
• Financial account number and access code
• Tax ID number
• Address
• Biometric information
• Birthday
• Health insurance and policy information
• Payment card number

How Did Wings Financial Admit to the Breach?

Wings Financial admitted to the breach by filing a notice with the Maine Attorney General. The company also sent notification letters to the victims of the breach, alerting them to its occurrence to help ensure their future safety. It took about four months for the investigation to have concluded and for the notices to be sent, but for us, we’d rather wait to know about the breach until we knew if and how we were affected than be left wondering for months only to find out we had nothing to do with it.

What Will Become of the Stolen Information?

Much of our PII is for sale and sells for relatively cheap – but when packaged, the data becomes much more valuable. In a combination deal, your name, social security number, and birthday will sell for 60 to 80 dollars, depending on your credit. So, if everyone had decent credit, the hacker managed to access enough information to earn them 16.8 million dollars, give or take. The hacker may spend this money on philanthropic endeavors, but we doubt it. Your PII is most likely being used to cushion the hacker’s bank account.

What Should Affected Parties Do in the Aftermath of the Breach?

We believe you should take the data breach as an opportunity to learn. We definitely want you to do everything in your power to keep you, your loved ones, and your PII safe, but we also want you to learn from this breach to prepare you for the next one. Because, unfortunately, that’s the reality of the world we live in. If we use the internet, we can be hacked. It’s as simple as that. However, there are steps that we can take to protect ourselves and the people we care about so that we can minimize the impact of a subsequent breach.