The New York State Public Service Commission will investigate a security breach involving the personal information of Rochester Gas & Electric and New York State Electric & Gas customers.
Iberdrola, the parent company of RG&E & NYSEG divulged the security breach Monday. The company announced that it would send a letter with details to more than one million customers, though the exact number of customers whose data was accessed was not released.
Iberdrola says an employee at an independent software development consulting firm contracted by them allowed unauthorized access to one of the companies’ customer information systems. The customer data accessed included Social Security numbers, dates of birth and, in some cases, financial institution account numbers.
NYSEG and RG&E have set up a help line at 1-877-736-4495 and 1-479-573-7373. The line is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
The company says they have arranged for the credit agency Experian to offer customers the option of a year of credit monitoring free of charge to help identify possible fraudulent activity.
Iberdrola issued a press release about the incident on the RG&E website