Case Study: Major Telecom Company

Cybersecurity breach response urgently requires Ricoh’s eDiscovery and document review services

About our customer

A large, dynamic technology and telecommunications company with $18 billion in annual revenue found itself in a critical situation due to a cybersecurity breach. With millions of customers and over 100,000 employees, they had a lot at stake. The company has been a long-time Ricoh customer, relying on our assistance on many legal projects.

“When we were alerted to an internal cybersecurity breach, we knew our response, including understanding specific reporting obligations, needed to be swift and precise. Ricoh was our first call as a long-time, trusted eDiscovery provider.”
— Director, Incident Response
Major Telecom Company

Challenge

A person with glasses in a dark room looking at computer screen that's displaying codes or programming, with reflections on the glasses

Cybersecurity breach exposed employee and customer data compromising about 145,000 documents
Required detailed review and reporting of PII to indicate what data was breached, to whom it belonged, and link it to the corresponding document
Conducting the review in-house or by external counsel would be costly and time-consuming

As a major telecommunications provider, with an abundance of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) in its possession, our client knew that any type of cybersecurity breach could have a negative impact on its customers and employees. The company had already experienced a cybersecurity breach in the past and was aware that swift action was required to comply with legal reporting requirements, quickly notify their customers if required, and avoid potential hefty government fines.

This required a thorough analysis, review, and reporting of PII to determine what PII was breached and the customer, employee or third party to whom it belonged, as well as every document that contained this PII.

The telecom company was able to identify almost 145,000 files that had been compromised but lacked the resources or expertise to assess the extent of the potential impact. They turned to Ricoh for help: “When we were alerted to a cybersecurity breach, we knew our response including specific reporting obligations needed to be swift and precise. Ricoh was our first call as a long-time, trusted eDiscovery provider,” said the Director, Incident Response.

Solution

“We worked closely with Ricoh to locate the PII that was contained within the stolen data to follow reporting and regulation requirements. In the end, we received one detailed report so we could take the appropriate measures.”

— Director, Incident Response, Major Telecom Company

Used our Intelligent eDiscovery and document review expertise to analyze and reduce the data set by 67%
Developed a complex, technology-based, customized workflow to address review complexities
Identified and reported on individuals impacted by the breach through our custom Intelligent Review service

Once the telecom company provided a copy of all the breached data files, the Ricoh team conducted a fast, highly effective analysis of the initial data set. Through a methodical process of analyzing the data, Ricoh narrowed down the files potentially containing PII from 144,490 to 47,203.

From there, the Intelligent Review team had to determine what specific PII data had been compromised. As the team — the telecom company, their external legal counsel and Ricoh — collaborated and began moving through the process, the complexities of the work required became more apparent.

However, the team efficiently collaborated to problem-solve effective solutions for each challenge as it arose. Aided by advanced analytics, the Intelligent Review team identified 4,329 documents containing PII on 3,756 customers, employees and third parties. A final, detailed report was provided to the telecom company, which included the names of all affected individuals and details on the breached PII associated with each.

Additionally, the Intelligent Review service included:

Data Process & Analysis
Data Hosting
Case Management
Project Management

Results

Delivered a detailed report to properly assess impact of the security breach
Identified 3,756 affected individuals
Saved 2,000 hours in review with Intelligent Review services
Strengthened partnership through collaboration to deliver results faster and realize cost-savings

As part of the Intelligent Review service, Ricoh delivered a thorough, detailed report to the telecom company enabling them to make an informed risk assessment. “We worked closely with Ricoh to locate the PII that was contained within the stolen data to follow reporting and regulation requirements. In the end, we received one detailed report so we could take the appropriate measures,” stated the Director, Incident Response.

Ricoh estimates that our team and processes saved the telecom company about 2,000 hours of review time by using Intelligent Review services. “We gained invaluable insight working with Ricoh and were able to alleviate a lot of stress and mitigate future risk that comes along with critical events,” said the Director, Incident Response.

By the conclusion of the project, Ricoh’s Intelligent Review services enabled the telecom company to react expeditiously and thoroughly to the data breach.

To learn more about eDiscovery and document review services or contact us today.

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