2.9 Million Canadian CU Account Holders Breached Posted by AVCU on 11:39 AM

In what is being billed as a breach of the largest financial co-operative in all of North America, a rogue employee of Desjardins Group, based in Montreal, illegally exposed the personal information of some 2.9 million credit union members.  The affected information includes names, birth dates, social insurance numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, street addresses and details on banking habits. Passwords, security questions and personal identification numbers reportedly weren’t compromised.  The incident was not billed as a “cyberattack.” 

The data breach also affected 173,000 businesses, for whom Desjardins provides merchant processig and other services.

The francophone credit union system in Quebec is different than in other provinces, and different than that of the United States.  Desjardins Group (Mouvement des caisses Desjardins in french) is a cooperative that is the largest federation of credit unions in North America, and is regarded as among the world's strongest banks according to the Banker magazine.  It was founded in 1900 in Levis, Quebec by Alphonse Desjardins, an often cited influence in U.S. credit union history.

Although there are approximately 293 credit unions (caisses populaires in french) with 1,032 locations mostly throughout Quebec serving over 7 million members, they share common data processing, branding, marketing and other centralized resources provided by Desjardins.

In addition to retail banking, Desjardins has over 20 subsidiaries providing products and services related to insurance, real estate, venture capital and brokerage. Desjardins Group provides technical assistance and various investments in over 50 developing countries.

Watch the embedded CBC video below for more details.