Manitoba

Steinbach Credit Union's phone line temporarily hijacked by 3rd party

Calls to Steinbach Credit Union's member contact centre on Tuesday were redirected to an unauthorized and outside third party, according to a Friday news release from the organization.

'We deeply regret the concern this will inevitably cause our members,' says CEO

The exterior of a bank building.
Steinbach Credit Union members were redirected by an unauthorized third party to a phone number outside of the organization on Tuesday, according to a news release. (Travis Golby/CBC)

Calls to Steinbach Credit Union's member contact centre on Tuesday were redirected to an unauthorized and outside third party, according to a Friday news release from the organization.

The credit union said the issue was with its telephone service provider, which has since fixed the error and re-secured SCU's phone system.

It's not known how long it took the credit union to re-secure its phone line, or if police were notified of the incident.

SCU has mobilized an incident response team to address the situation and is proactively enhancing internal processes to mitigate any risks to its members, the credit union said in the release.

The names and phone numbers of members, as well as call dates, are the only pieces of information that were possibly disclosed because of the incident, according to preliminary results from the credit union's investigation.

"We take this incident very seriously. We deeply regret the concern this will inevitably cause our members," chief executive officer Glenn Friesen said in the release.

CBC News reached out to SCU but they declined to comment on Friday.

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