Cable giant Cox Communications reached a $595,000 civil settlement with the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Enforcement Bureau, bringing to a close an investigation over whether Cox failed to properly protect customer data.
The case stemmed from a hack perpetrated by a member of the hacking group Lizard Squad who conned his way passed several Cox employees in 2014 to gain access to the company's customer and corporate systems, the FCC said in a release. A wide variety of personal identifying information was exposed including names, partial social security and driver's license numbers.
“Bureau's investigation found that at the time of the breach, Cox's relevant data security systems did not include readily available measures for all of its employees or contractors that might have prevented the use of the compromised credentials,” the FCC reported, adding the company also did not inform the FCC of the breach.
