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Geico security flaw exposes customers' driver's license numbers

Driver's license details are becoming a hot commodity for bad actors seeking to claim unemployment benefits fraudulently.

"As soon as Geico became aware of the issue, we secured the affected website and worked to identify the root cause of the incident," said Sheila King, manager of data privacy at Geico, in a letter to affected customers on April 9, 2021. (Photo: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock) “As soon as Geico became aware of the issue, we secured the affected website and worked to identify the root cause of the incident,” said Sheila King, manager of data privacy at Geico, in an April 9th letter to affected customers. (Photo: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock)

A security breach at Geico, the second-largest auto insurer in the U.S., allowed fraudsters to access customers’ driver’s license numbers in an attempt fraudulently apply for unemployment benefits, the carrier said in a recent letter.

In an April 9th notice to affected customers and the California attorney general’s office, Sheila King, Geico’s manager of data privacy, said that between January 21 and March 1, 2021, criminals accessed driver’s license numbers through the company’s online sales platform using information illegally acquired elsewhere. That information, Geico believes, could be used to apply for unemployment benefits under the victims’ names.

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Heather A. Turner

Heather A. Turner

Heather A. Turner is the managing editor of ALM's NU Property & Casualty Group. She can be reached at [email protected].

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