As TruStage continues its restoration efforts, the company reached out this week with an important update for credit union leaders.

TruStage reported a cybersecurity incident on July 11 that prompted it to immediately shut down its operational systems.

This week’s update provides policyholder reassurances, ensuring credit union leaders have the resources they need to continue serving their members:

TruStage August 12 Update

Partners,

We appreciate your continued patience and partnership as we remain focused on serving our shared mission of protecting and supporting the members we collectively serve.

We are making steady advancements in restoring our technology environment and expanding operational capabilities, while also taking the opportunity to strengthen the technology foundation that will support members, customers, and credit union partners.

While full restoration across all systems will take time — longer than any of us would like — we are using this opportunity to enhance our environment, and our ability to serve you and your members. Our goal is not simply to return to normal, but to emerge even stronger and more secure.

Our Priorities and Progress

As we work to hit our previously communicated goal of having most of our key processes operational by mid-August, we are making solid progress in the areas that matter most:

• We expect to have basic servicing up and running for the majority of our businesses, including the reopening of our customer contact centers, by our mid-August target.
• Some businesses, such as our retirement call center, are open now, while our life and annuity call centers will open Friday, Aug. 14. Keep in mind, the experience may have hiccups due to higher volumes and longer handling times initially. While not all customer service needs can be addressed at this time, we are committed to enhancing our experiences and capabilities in the weeks ahead.
• We have started to pay claims across our business, including preplanning/funeral claims, GAP claims and debt protection/credit insurance benefits. For Life and AD&D claims, we are working to restore core processing capabilities, and we will focus first on paying claims that were pending at the time of the outage before moving to claims received post-outage. We will work through this backlog as quickly as possible, but that will take some time.
• For Wealth, we have previously shared that annuity and retirement plan assets were not impacted by the cybersecurity attack. The majority of defined contribution participants, other than those using certain legacy platforms, can now request withdrawals and loans, if allowed under their plan, and request updates on their account balances over the phone.
• We have resumed billing activities to avoid billing disruptions for a large segment of our consumers and are working on options for consumers who missed a payment. Be assured that those policies will remain active as we work through this process.
• We continue to make progress with new functionality coming online daily across the businesses and will continue to improve the customer experience.

We remain committed to supporting you, keeping you informed, and providing guidance as systems and processes are reestablished.

Know that teams are actively working to restore systems and processes in phases using a mix of secure, restored capabilities and interim solutions. Each of those is tested and validated before coming online. Mandiant, our cybersecurity partner, has confirmed that TruStage has established a clean, isolated environment that is separate from any systems that were impacted, potentially impacted, or remain under investigation.

Data Investigation Update

Many of you continue to ask if your data may have been compromised. We know you want answers quickly, and we do too. We’re executing as quickly as we can with the help of Mandiant, our cybersecurity experts, and Epiq Global, a leading data analysis firm. Because of how complicated this process is, it will likely be 2 to 3 months from now before we have those answers. I understand that timeline may be frustrating, but it is consistent with what happens in these kinds of cases. The time required to get this right will allow us to share accurate information and give you the answers you need.

If we determine that your member data or your employee data has been impacted, we are committed to telling you first. And we will do what we can do to make any notification and regulatory reporting that might be required as easy on you as we can.

Updated investigation FAQs can be viewed here.

Staying Informed

Please continue to reference our outage hub and regular recovery updates for the latest information on restoration progress, operational impacts, and available support resources.

Thank you again for your patience and partnership. While this situation has tested us, it has also reinforced the strength of our partnership and our commitment to continuous improvement. We remain focused on restoring services safely, securely, and thoughtfully, and we value your ongoing partnership every step of the way.