HALIFAX — Nova Scotia’s cybersecurity minister says his department has identified thousands more people affected by a recent global data breach.

However, Colton LeBlanc says it’s hard to give a new estimate of how many people were targeted by the hack of the MOVEit file transfer service because of a large number of duplicate files associated with individual people.

LeBlanc said June 6 that as many as 100,000 people in the province had personal data stolen such as social insurance numbers, addresses and banking information.

The minister now says a further 13,000 active employees with regional centres for education and with the province’s francophone school board had personal data stolen, including their names, addresses and social insurance numbers.

As well, hackers stole personal data from about 17,500 water and tax bill accounts with the Region of Queens Municipality.

LeBlanc says notification letters will be distributed at the end of this week, but he adds it will likely take weeks or even months to notify all of the people affected.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 14, 2023.

The Canadian Press