CenterPoint Energy says personal information belonging to some customers was obtained by an unauthorized third party in a data breach.<\/p>\n
The Houston-based utility disclosed the incident in a Sept. 14 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. <\/p>\n
CenterPoint says it became aware this month of an online post from a third party claiming to have obtained a dataset containing customer information.<\/p>\n
\u201cUpon becoming aware of the post, the Company promptly took action and activated its cybersecurity incident response protocols,\u201d the filing states.<\/p>\n
CenterPoint says it launched an investigation with outside cybersecurity experts and took steps to further protect its systems.<\/p>\n
The company says its investigation determined that an unauthorized third party obtained personal information involving a portion of its customers through one of its external-facing systems.<\/p>\n
CenterPoint has not said what types of personal information were involved, how many customers may be affected or when the data was accessed.<\/p>\n
The company says its \u201cdelivery of electric and gas services has not been impacted and remains operational and undisrupted.\u201d<\/p>\n
CenterPoint says it is working with third-party experts to determine which customers and information were affected. The company says it intends to notify affected customers and regulatory authorities as required by law and has reported the matter to law enforcement.<\/p>\n
“As of the date of this filing, the Company does not believe it is reasonably likely that there will be a material impact on the Company\u2019s financial condition or results of operations,” the company said.<\/p>\n
“The Company has incurred, and expects to continue to incur, certain expenses related to the Incident and its response to the Incident. The Company maintains customary cybersecurity insurance coverage and believes this insurance will offset related costs,” CenterPoint Energy said.<\/p>\n
CenterPoint has notified law enforcement.<\/p>\n
As of Tuesday evening, CenterPoint had not addressed the data breach in news releases posted online and had not commented through its social media channels.<\/p>\n
It’s unclear how many customers’ data was leaked or what potential remedies or safeguards the company will provide to affected customers.<\/p>\n
KPRC-TV in Houston contacted CenterPoint for more information.<\/p>\n
“Our filing speaks for itself,” a spokesperson told the TV station. <\/p>\n
About CenterPoint Energy<\/p>\n
CenterPoint Energy is a Houston-based utility holding company. Its subsidiaries operate electric transmission and distribution systems and natural gas distribution systems.<\/p>\n
In Southeast Texas, CenterPoint provides natural gas service. Its Beaumont\/East Texas rate area includes Beaumont, Port Arthur, Nederland, Orange, Bridge City, Vidor, Silsbee, Lumberton, Jasper and Kirbyville.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CenterPoint Energy says personal information belonging to some customers was obtained by an unauthorized third party in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-437373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}