December 22nd, 2017

What's the issue?

Nissan Canada Finance (NCF) and INFINITI Financial Services Canada has become the latest corporation to be the target of a data breach involving customer personal and financial information. On December 11 NCF became aware of unauthorized access to customer information, which may include customer name, address, vehicle make and model, vehicle identification number (VIN), credit score, loan amount, and monthly payment. NCF does not believe payment card information was exposed.

NCF has not reported the extent of the damage but is notifying all 1.13 million customers and providing them 12 months of free credit monitoring services through TransUnion.

How did this happen?

At this time NCF has not disclosed how the breached happened, but they are working with law enforcement and data security experts to investigate this incident.

What should I do?

If you have used Nissan Canada Finance or INFINITI Financial Services Canada you are eligible for 12 months of free credit monitoring from TransUnion. NPC advises this is the absolute minimum of protection. Nissan and Infiniti customers should be aware of potential fraud threats using their identity, and be vigilant by monitoring their various accounts and request their credit report periodically. Unfortunately, Canadian credit monitoring agencies do not allow Canadians to put a credit freeze on their credit file, as is available in other countries. Canadians can add a fraud alert to their credit file to warn credit grantors to contact them before approving credit. That's if you can convince the credit agency a significant amount of your personally identifying information (PII) or your financial information has been breached and you are at risk. Also, it is up to a credit issuer to decide if they will take any action or contact you before issuing credit when they see an alert on your file.

For more information check Nissan Canada Finance's release for this data breach at https://www.nissancanadafinance.ca/SecurityNotice?ln=en.

We at NPC will continue to monitor the event and advise further if required.

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