Halifax Water customers will continue to receive paper bills as the utility addresses a recent privacy breach affecting 16 accounts. The web portal for accessing bills has been offline since March. An independent forensic investigation revealed a vulnerability in the third-party platform powering the Customer Connect portal, allowing an external party to access personal information linked to the affected accounts. This incident was not a cybersecurity attack on Halifax Water’s systems.
The accessed information included customer names, email addresses, service or home addresses, account details, and security questions and answers. However, no financial information was compromised. The impacted customers were notified in June and provided with information on the incident and steps to take, along with a direct line to a Halifax Water representative for assistance.
Halifax Water CEO Kenda MacKenzie expressed regret for the inconvenience caused and stated that they are diligently working to address the matter, including contractual and insurance issues. Approximately 55,000 customers use the online portal. The utility reported the vulnerability to the platform vendor in November 2025, which initially patched the issue. However, a subsequent software update in January 2026 exposed the vulnerability again.
The utility dismissed an initial notice of the security issue as spam in February but later took action when the third party followed up in March. Halifax Water has since enhanced cybersecurity measures and processes to better respond to such reports in the future. Although the original vulnerability has been fixed, additional security testing revealed more vulnerabilities, leading to the portal remaining offline until a secure restoration can be completed.
Halifax Water will provide further updates once a timeline for the portal’s restoration is confirmed. In the meantime, customers will continue to receive bills by mail.