Nova Scotians’ personal information stolen in global security breach: province

A global security breach has resulted in the theft of an undisclosed number of Nova Scotians’ personal information.

The provincial government confirmed the theft of information in a Sunday press conference but provided few details about what was stolen and how many people are affected.

“Nova Scotians will have questions, and we do, too. Our staff are working hard to figure that out now,” said Cyber Security and Digital Solutions Minister Colton LeBlanc in a news release. “I know this will make some people anxious, at a time when no one needs more anxiety. We will share more information with Nova Scotians as soon as we can.”

The theft involves information from a file transfer service used by the provincial government called MOVEit.

MOVEit informed the province, as well as other users, of a vulnerability with the service on Thursday. The province says staff took the system offline and installed a security update.

But on Friday, the government received word that further investigation was needed and cybersecurity experts were brought in.

LeBlanc says impacted Nova Scotians will be contacted once they have been identified and that more information will be released to the public as it becomes available.