The Canadian government has warned of a data breach involving BGRS and affecting military personnel.
A dispatch issued on October 20 through The Maple Leaf – a national online source for stories about the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and the Department of National Defence (DND) – said it became aware of an incident affecting BGRS systems on September 29, 2023 and it had been in contact with the company to ‘understand the nature of the incident’.
‘BGRS has now confirmed that unauthorized access was obtained to Government of Canada (GC) personnel information held by BGRS and as such we are providing notification of this incident,’ it said.
‘Defence Team members who have a relocation file with BGRS should take precautionary measures including updating login credentials that may be similar to those used with BGRS, enabling multi-factor authentication on accounts that are used for online transactions, and monitoring their financial and personal online accounts for any unusual activity.’
‘We will continue to assess the outcomes of the BGRS investigation so we can provide further guidance to Defence Team members and understand the overall impact to GC personnel as a result of this data breach. The protection of the personal information of Defence Team members remains a priority for the Government of Canada. ‘
The dispatch asked military and civilian managers to pass the information ‘to all personnel’.
There have been unconfirmed reports that the data breach may have affected the SIRVA group. However, the company has not verified the extent of the breach.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has also reported on this story.
