UK Data Protection Watchdog Investigates 2.4m Customer Leak
The ICO is investigating the hacking of Carphone Warehouse – it turned out that the latter compromised the personal information and bank details of 2.4m customers. The company admitted that during the hacking attack, names, addresses, date of birth data and bank details of 2.4m customers, along with 90,000 customer credit cards, may have been accessed.
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Carphone Warehouse operates brick and mortar stores selling mobiles, plans and accessories, as well as OneStopPhoneShop.co.uk, e2save.com and Mobiles.co.uk. The company also provides services to TalkTalk Mobile, Talk Mobile and its own iD mobile network.
The UK information watchdog confirmed it had been made aware of the incident and was making enquiries. Carphone Warehouse also informed Scotland Yard of the breach, but the police have yet to receive a formal report of a criminal offence. As for the National Crime Agency, it would not confirm whether it was to open an investigation.
The suffered company began alerting its customers via email and took down affected websites. The figures say that about 480,000 of the 2.4m TalkTalk Mobile customers were affected by the hack, as well as 1.9m direct customers of Carphone Warehouse.
Security specialists recommend users affected by the hack change their passwords and make sure they are not the same as for other services. Carphone Warehouse also warns its customers to be aware of emails or phone calls pretending to be the company. Cyber criminals may seek to exploit the situation and trick Internet users into sharing information a real company would never ask for.
Experts also remind that any time personal information leaked, there can be a risk of identity theft, so the affected users should be vigilant around items on their credit card statements or check their credit ratings.
