The Town of Huntsville (“Town”), is providing notice to individuals who supplied sensitive personal information to the Town of Huntsville, Muskoka Heritage Place, the Algonquin Theatre, or Huntsville Public Library of a cybersecurity incident that may affect certain individuals’ personal information. 

What Happened?
On March 10, 2024, we discovered that an unauthorized third party had accessed our network and engaged in activity which impacted some of our systems. We responded immediately and took steps to contain the incident, including temporarily taking systems offline in order to secure our network and data. 
We retained a team of third-party cybersecurity experts to investigate the cause and extent of this incident, and have retained legal counsel to assist us in our response. Our investigation identified that some of the data we hold was impacted by this incident. We completed a thorough review of that information and identified those who could have been affected and the nature of the personal information involved. 

What Information Was Involved?
The personal information involved in this incident varies from person to person. The types of information that could have been involved in this case includes: name, date of birth, contact information (e.g., email addresses, home address), bank account information (e.g., account number, transit number, bank number), payment card information, driver’s license information, health card information, passport information, social insurance information, medical information (e.g., health provider, diagnosis, prescriptions, clinical information, medical record number), employee information (e.g., employee reviews, compensation), religious preferences, and criminal history. The Town will be notifying impacted individuals directly for whom we have sufficient contact information. 

Please know that steps were taken to secure the data as soon as this incident was discovered. To date, we have no evidence that any personal information has been offered for sale to any third parties who may seek to misuse it. 

What We Are Doing.
As soon as we discovered this incident, we took the steps described above and examined our system to ensure that the risk of a similar incident occurring in the future was minimized. In addition, we are committed to improvement wherever possible and will continue consulting with our experts to evaluate ways to further strengthen our security safeguards. 

What You Can Do.
While we have no evidence that any personal information has been misused for any fraudulent purposes, we recommend remaining vigilant against common threats of fraud and identity theft by taking the following steps to protect yourself and your information:

• If you receive emails, letters, telephone calls or text messages purporting to be from the Town asking for financial or any other personal information that you were not expecting, please consider the communication to be fraudulent.
• Monitor your bank accounts and credit history to guard against any unauthorized transactions or activity. If you have any doubts or notice any suspicious or potentially fraudulent activity on your credit or debit card, we recommend you contact your financial institution immediately.
• If at any time you believe you have been the victim of fraud or identity theft, contact your local law enforcement agency and file a police report.
• Remain vigilant of any phishing or spoofing attempts. Spoofing is an impersonation tactic used in phishing campaigns to deceive individuals into thinking that a communication, either a letter, text or email, came from a trusted source and to leverage that to obtain further information or defraud the recipient.
• Avoid clicking on links or downloading attachments from suspicious emails. 

Additional tips and resources for protecting your identity are available on priv.gc.ca.

For More Information
If you receive an email or letter notice about this incident directly from the Town, that notice sets out the types of personal information about you that may have been involved in this incident. If you are not contacted by the Town directly but supplied sensitive personal information to the Town of Huntsville, Muskoka Heritage Place, the Algonquin Theatre, or Huntsville Public Library, we recommend that you follow the recommendations outlined in this notice.

We apologize for any inconvenience or concern this incident may cause you and we assure you we are taking it very seriously. If you have questions regarding this incident, please contact our dedicated incident response line at 1-888-360-9965 between the hours of 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. EST Monday to Friday and one our agents will be happy to assist you. Thank you for your patience and understanding.