An unnamed trucking company has filed a lawsuit against Total Quality Logistics (TQL) due to the data hacking incident that happened last February.
According to the trucking company, TQL should face sanctions over negligence on their computer systems. Last February, some hackers were able to tamper TQL’s systems and access confidential information of its clients.
Trucking company owner Charles Newman said TQL failed to ‘implement and maintain reasonable security measures over personally identifiable information.’ It took the logistics company four days before discovering the hacking attack that happened on Feb. 23, 2020. The company believed that the hackers might have gained access to customers’ business information.
The logistics company has over 57 offices with more than 85,000 carriers and 1.8 million of freight per year. The information is not limited to carriers’ tax ID numbers, bank account numbers, and invoice information, including dates and amounts.
Upon their discovery, TQL recommended customers to take security measures and contact banks to place a fraud alert over credit files. The financial institution must be notified to inform about the information compromised, including routing, bank account, and tax ID numbers.
“We are still gathering details, but it appears it was initially an information/data phishing attempt. Our IT security teams identified the issue quickly and countered immediately to secure all online information,” said TQL president Kerry Byrne.
Security Uncertainties
While the hacking was discovered, the logistics company is still clueless about the scope of the attack in their IT systems. The company wasn’t sure of the exact number of carriers affected by the security breach. However, TQL said they are working with law enforcement and a cybersecurity firm to trace the breach and find out the exact number of carriers and customers impacted.
In light of the data breach incident, the company is also terminating staff due to ‘underperformance.’ According to FreightWaves, several employees were fired in their respective posts and the company has opened 125 positions in various offices.
“This week we informed some employees they were being separated from the company due to underperformance. No other internal or external factors played a part in these decisions,” corporate communications officer Tom Millikin.
Currently, the company has about 2,200 employees working from home. In addition to firing underperformed employees, the company is adding more servers to network and improve the speed and quality of IT networks.
