Ameritas announces data breach exposing customers’ info

Insurance and Finance company Ameritas has notified customers that their personal information may have been exposed in a data breach, earlier this month.

The Lincoln-based company said in a letter on July 23rd that several of its employees fell victim to a “phishing” scam in May and early June, that tricked them into providing email credentials.

The company says it has taken action to address the exposure, including disabling the unauthorized access and deploying a mandatory company-wide password reset.

Information that may have been exposed includes names, home and email addresses, Social Security numbers and policy numbers.

An Ameritas spokeswoman say the company is not publicly disclosing how many people have been affected until final notification of regulatory authorities.

The company has hired Kroll Associates, a risk-consulting firm, to investigate the incident.

Ameritas also is providing identity and credit-monitoring services free for one year to affected customers.