Social EngineeringFinancial ServicesFinancePhishingStolen CredentialsCustomer Data InvolvedTargetedIdentity (basic)Government IDFinancial accountHighContained

CETERA FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.

bd_d28fdbc51402468e · schema v1 · pii pii-v1

Severity

High

Discovered

Apr 6, 2020

Filed

Aug 21, 2020

To disclose

20 weeks

Affected

2,760state residents only

Linked

4 filings

Confidence

71%

Full breach record for CETERA FINANCIAL GROUP, INC. →7 incidents on file

Cetera Financial Group, Inc. reported a security incident on April 6, 2020, where an unauthorized person accessed an employee's email account. The breach affected 2,760 Washington residents, exposing names, SSNs, driver's license numbers, and financial account information. Cetera secured the account, reset passwords, and notified affected individuals on August 21, 2020, offering one year of Experian credit monitoring.

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Washington clock✗ WA AG >90d20 weeks discovery → filing

⚠ occurrence dateThe stored discovery date equals the breach OCCURRENCE date. Detection is normally later, so this OVERSTATES the delay — a 'late' verdict here may not be real.

Incident timeline

discovery → filing · 20 weeks / 137 days

Apr 6, 2020

Begins

Apr 6, 2020

Discovered

Aug 21, 2020

Filed

vs. sector median

+10 wks slower

This filing is one of 4 about the same incident.View merged incident

Linked disclosures

Why this link?

Regulatory filings (3) · sorted by filing gap

Montana State AGbd_d34b6bcf19629cfa2020-08-21Verified
California State AGbd_d72d9cacef1c0c8e2020-08-21Verified
Illinois State AGbd_2ed9e7845b80eabd2020-01-01 · +233dCandidate

Name: CETERA FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.
norm: cetera financial
Domain: cetera.com

Name: CETERA FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.
norm: cetera financial
Domain: cetera.com
Industry: Financial Servicesllm

Discovered: Apr 6, 2020
Breach occurred: Apr 6, 2020
Undetected for: 0 daysoccurrence → discovery
Materiality determined: —
Notification sent: Aug 21, 2020
Affected individuals: 2,760state-resident count only
Data types: Identity (basic)Government IDFinancial account
Data elements: NameSocial Security numberDriver's licence numberFinancial account number
WA-stated cause: Cyberattack
WA-stated duration: lifecycle 0dexposure 0d
WA-stated discovery: Found while ongoingContained same day
Attack vector: Phishing
MITRE ATT&CK: T1566.002 Spearphishing LinkT1078 Valid Accounts
Threat actor: External
Regulator citations: Notified Washington Attorney General Consumer Protection Division
Initial access: phishing_link

During the incident: Secured the account within five minutes
Reset passwords
Initiated an investigation
Reviewed the entire contents of the email account
Began mailing written notifications to potentially affected individuals
Offered complimentary one-year membership in credit monitoring and identity theft protection services from Experian
Changes made: Implementing additional security measures
Training and educating employees on information security and data protection
Source: Quoted from the filing itself, not independently verified.

Time to disclose: 20 weeks(137 days from discovery to filing)
Compliance flags: WA AG >90d
Discovery-date grounding: occurrence dateThe stored discovery date equals the breach OCCURRENCE date. Detection is normally later, so this OVERSTATES the delay — a 'late' verdict here may not be real.

Status: No extraction artifact recorded for this disclosure.

Filing propagation · 4 filings · 4 states

View merged incident ↗

Illinois State AGJan 1 · first

Montana State AG+233d

California State AG+233d

Washington State AG+233d · this page

Pattern: first filing Jan 1 (IL), last Aug 21 (WA) — a 233-day rolling notification. Rolling spreads often mean counsel is filing as thresholds trip per state. Why this link?

Evidence ladder

Leak-site claim

Attacker assertion only. Establishes: claim date, group, alleged victim.

Press / market report

Unlocks: incident narrative, operational impact. Still no compliance clock.

State AG / regulator filingThis record

Unlocks: discovery date, data types, affected count, compliance clock.

SEC 8-K / victim statement

Unlocks: materiality, stated response, full audit trail. Ceiling removed.

Source URL: https://agportal-s3bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/databreach/BreachM10256.pdf
DisclosureLens links to the originating regulator URL — full filing bodies are not redistributed from public surfaces (§4.5).
Filed at: Aug 21, 2020
Raw hash: abd040674c8e3839046408f104e8ac5e6768f323972931aa16a68401055a551c

Linked disclosures

Regulatory filings (3) · sorted by filing gap

Reporting entityCETERA FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.

Victim entityCETERA FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.

Incidentdiscovered Apr 6, 2020

Stated responseSecured the account within five minutes

ComplianceWA AG >90d

Extraction provenanceno artifact recorded

Source provenanceagportal-s3bucket.s3.amazonaws.com