Mississippi electric utility warns 20,000 residents of data breach

An electric utility serving six counties in Mississippi discovered unauthorized access to its network in late August that disrupted payment processing and ultimately exposed personal information for 20,997 customers; the organization completed its review in October and offered one year of identity protection to affected individuals. The ransomware group Akira later claimed responsibility and alleged theft of Social Security numbers and financial records, although the utility did not explicitly state the incident was caused by ransomware in its public notices.