Utility Breach Exposes Over 1 Million Texans

CenterPoint Energy, a Houston‑based utility, told Texas authorities that the personal information of more than 1 million people had been stolen in a data breach. The company made the notice a month after it filed with the SEC that customer data had been taken from its systems. Days before the official disclosure, a hacker bragged on a well‑known cybercrime forum that it had captured almost 7.5 million user records from CenterPoint. The utility said it learned of the breach after seeing the hacker’s public post, and that only a portion of its customers were affected.

CenterPoint’s filing lists the compromised data as names, addresses, Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers. In the hacker’s 2.5‑gigabyte archive posted online, the file contains roughly 3 million phone numbers and other personal details. The archive was made available for download on September 12, according to the report.

CenterPoint has not sent notification letters to the individuals who may have been exposed. The breach did not affect the company’s operations, the filing says. The data leak was discovered after the hacker’s public claim, and the utility said only a portion of its customers were harmed. Customers who were impacted have not yet received any direct notification from the utility.

CenterPoint supplies electricity and natural gas to residents in Texas, Indiana, Minnesota and Ohio. The company confirmed that 1,062,060 Texas residents were affected, but it is unclear how many customers in the other states were impacted. No total impact figure beyond Texas is available at this time.