Chicago Officials Investigate Hacking of Municipal Employee Retirement Accounts

Chicago officials this week began investigating the breaching of over 90 retirement accounts of municipal employees.

The breach affected 91 employees enrolled in the city’s 457 plan, which is similar to a 401(k) plan.

The majority of the accounts had money taken out of them by the hacker(s).

More from the Chicago Tribune:

Workers with Nationwide Retirement Solutions noticed “suspicious activity” with some 457 deferred compensation accounts for municipal employees similar to 401k accounts on June 1, a company spokesman said. These accounts are administered by Nationwide on behalf of the city, according to the city comptroller’s office.

City officials said 91 accounts were breached, of which 58 accounts had money withdrawn and the remaining 33 accounts did not. The theft was apparently undertaken by a person or group who accessed personal information and apparently created a web profile to take out a loan from the retirement account, officials said.

Nationwide notified the accounts holders as well as federal authorities, according to city officials and Nationwide spokesman Ryan Ankrom. Within five days, the municipal employees affected by the breach had their funds returned to their accounts, Ankrom said. “Everybody who was affected by this had their money returned to them,” he said.