The provincial government says the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority (SLGA) is currently in the process of directly notifying clients who provided the S-L-G-A with sensitive personal information within the past five years after it was determined that hackers accessed sensitive information on employees and clients during a 2021 cyberattack.

The investigation into the 2021 attack continues. However, a news release from the government adds that cyber-security experts found the attackers accessed “data associated with S-L-G-A employees, including information typically collected by employers such as names, banking information and social insurance numbers.”

The hackers may have also accessed personal information belonging to S-L-G-A’s regulatory clients, in which they provided detailed personal information in order to obtain liquor or cannabis licences. The cyber-security experts found some of the information had already been shared on “the dark web,” or internet sites that require specific software or authorization to access.

The government statement also said that, after consulting with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, S-L-G-A advised its current and former employees about the potential threat and suggested courses of action that employees could take to help ensure their information is secure, and offered them a credit monitoring service for two years. S-L-G-A’s clients were extended the same offers of credit monitoring and suggested steps to improve their data security. The Crown corporation has hired an outside firm to conduct an audit of their cyber-security systems and policies to help ensure no further data is compromised.