New York State Electric & Gas and Rochester Gas and Electric have announced that a consulting firm hired by the utilities allowed unauthorized access to customer accounts. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports that the information breached included Social Security numbers, dates of birth and the bank account numbers of some of the utilities' customers. While there is no evidence of misuse, the companies are offering free credit monitoring to all affected customers and have set up a help line, and the New York Public Service Commission is conducting an investigation into which customers were affected and the cause of the breach.
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