PwC confirms cybersecurity incident involving employee learning records

By AJ Vicens

Oct 23 (Reuters) - PwC on Friday said it was aware of a cybersecurity incident involving a third-party vendor used to host company employee learning records, the day after a cyber extortion group claimed to have stolen 590 gigabytes of company data.

• A PwC global spokesperson said "the affected site does not house client data, sensitive personal data or financial information. Once we learned of this incident we acted promptly to secure the environment and conduct a thorough review."

• The incident "does not impact our network or any of our operations," the spokesperson said.

• A cyber extortion group called "Everest" claimed responsibility for the data breach in a message posted to its website October 22, according to cybercrime research platform eCrime.ch. The message included a countdown timer with five days remaining, and a message indicating the data would be released if a deal could not be reached.

• Everest claimed to have stolen 590 gigabytes of data that included "regional HR and learning exports, integration documentation, software components and PwC e-learning courses."

• The data contains information "about individuals and their organisational and employment history," Everest said, including names, email addresses, telephone numbers, addresses and other details.

• The PwC spokesperson declined to comment on the amount of data stolen or the veracity of the hacking group's claims.

(Reporting by AJ Vicens in Detroit; Editing by Chris Reese)