Keith J. Kelly

Keith J. Kelly

Media

Hackers victimize Inc., Fast Company staffers

File this under: “Don’t ever let this happen to you.”

Mansueto Ventures, publisher of Inc. and Fast Company magazines, was the victim of a massive data breach that exposed employees’ wage information and Social Security numbers to hackers.

The hackers have already used the illegally obtained information to file fraudulent federal and state tax returns, one worker said.

Employees are not happy.

“I am irate,” said one affected staffer. “Tax filings on the state-local [level] have been filed under my Social Security number. People are put off as to why they have to spend their own time and resources to begin to rectify this.”

Staffers also cannot imagine how a company of Mansueto’s magnitude would not have proper security tools in place.

The task of alerting workers to the hack has fallen to Chief Financial Officer Mark Rosenberg.

The employees are worried that 401(k)s and credit cards could also be hit.

“The fact that all that data was unencrypted is pathetic — and ironic as hell,” said one former staffer whose data was swiped. The two titles are focused on telling others how to run their businesses better.

One insider said that the word on the company grapevine was that the stolen IDs of 90 percent of the employees were used to file the fraudulent tax returns — although the company could not confirm that.

The company, founded by billionaire Joe Mansueto, who also founded Morningstar, did confirm the data breach and said it has notified law enforcement officials.

Customer, client and subscriber data were not hacked, the company said.