HALIFAX — Nova Scotia Power officials say they don’t know why a digital copy of almost three decades worth of customer information that was later stolen in a cyberattack was not automatically deleted as intended. The information, containing the personal data of hundreds of thousands of customers, was accessed in March 2025 by what the company has said it believes were Russia-based actors. It contained addresses, phone numbers, banking information, social insurance numbers and other customer data. Executive Blake Williams told a regulatory hearing that the company has mechanisms to automatically delete certain data in cycles of no more than 90 days. He said the utility does not know why the file, created in 2021 and still present in the system in 2025, was never deleted. If it had been destroyed as intended, Williams says the information would not have been available to the attackers. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 18, 2026. Devin Stevens, The Canadian Press
