The theater chain National Amusements, which is also the corporate parent behemoth of media giants Paramount and CBS, has announced that it has undergone a data breach in which hackers acquired the personal information of tens of thousands of individuals.
During a data breach in December 2022, the private media conglomerate disclosed, in a filing that was legally obliged to be submitted to the attorney general of Maine, that hackers took personal information belonging to 82,128 individuals.
It wasn’t until a year later when the firm started informing customers who were affected, that the specifics of the breach in December 2022 became public knowledge.
According to the warning Maine received, the corporation discovered the breach some months later, in August 2023. However, the company did not disclose the personal information stolen. A data breach report submitted to Maine stated that hackers also took financial information, such as the numbers of credit cards or banking accounts, along with related security codes, passwords, or secrets.
Given that the company’s chief of human resources provided the letter of notice regarding the data breach, the stolen information might involve the business’s employees.
However, the media company has not provided any more details on the breach, nor has it disclosed whether the hack has compromised the personal information of its customers or users. There is a lack of clarity on the nature of the cyberattack that the firm was subjected to, as well as whether or not the attackers demanded a ransom or whether or not the company paid them.
The request for comment made on Tuesday was not met with a response from Rachel Lulay, a representative for National Amusements. The spokespersons for CBS and Paramount both declined to comment on the matter.
Although National Amusements owns more than 1,500 theaters across the United States, the firm is most well-known for its controlling share in Paramount and CBS, which was acquired by CBS in 2019 due to the merger of Viacom and Columbia.
Based on a petition with the Massachusetts attorney general, Paramount acknowledged a separate security problem in August. According to the statement, hackers stole personal information from an undefined number of customers. According to the warning, the hackers obtained the names and dates of birth of Paramount customers and their Social Security numbers and other identifying numbers granted by the government.
