Data of 1,827 Vodafone customers stolen by hackers

Vodafone in the United Kingdom has revealed the fact that information of its 1,827 customers were stolen. The information included the names, bank account numbers, bank sort codes and mobile numbers of these customers. However, despite the revelation, Vodafone has refused to accept the fact that its own systems were compromised and the data was stolen. Instead it claims that the information of these 1827 customers was leaked from an “external” source.

Vodafone has not clarified what does it mean by an external source or which is this source. It also did not clarify how this external source got the information that it leaked. It seems that the information must have been leaked by someone inside Vodafone to this external source which was then released by it. There does not seem to be any other plausible explanation as to how can an external source got hold of information stored wit Vodafone.

Vodafone in Australia has recently been accused of monitoring the call and SMS details of a reporter in an unauthorised manner. Even in that instance the company pinned the blame on one of its staff rather than taking the responsibility on itself for the incident. It seems that even in this hacking instance of over 1800 customers’ data being stolen, Vodafone is again trying to find someone else to blame.

After the TalkTalk incident in the UK where thousands of customers had their banking details compromised and over 1.2 million had their name and email ids leaked, Vodafone is the next instance that has shocked the industry and the consumers. It seems even companies as large as Vodafone and TalkTalk are complacent when it comes to securing the information of their customers and the access to these customer details can be gained by anyone without proper authorisation.

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by Malik korrich ~ dimanche 1 novembre 2015 0 commentaires

A 15 year old boy arrested for hacking TalkTalk

Scotland Yard has arrested a 15 year old boy in the Northern Ireland in connection with the hacking incident that breached the information stored with TalkTalk a United Kingdom based broadband and phone service provider.

The company has over 4 million customers across the United Kingdom and the attack on their website resulted in the breach of sensitive information of their customers. Consequent of the attack, the metropolitan police raided a house in Antrim County and arrested the boy on the suspicion of conducting the hack. He is charged for the offenses covered under the Computer Misuse Act.

The attack initially was considered grave and the company lost its market share value by 12 percent. However, later Dido Harding, the CEO of the company stated that the attack was not of very serious nature. Earlier it was thought that sensitive information such as the banking details of the customers could have been lost in the attack. But later it was found by the company that even if the data was last, it was only partial and did not comprise much of the information. For instance, the credit card data if stolen, would have XXXX instead of the numbers which means that this information is meaningless for stealing funds.

The boy is under the custody of the Police of Northern Ireland and is being investigated. There is ongoing inquiry into the incident and the premises from where the boy was arrested is continued being searched.

The investigation is conducted jointly by the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit (MPCCU) and Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). Such attacks are of serious nature and the companies can potentially lose billions in damages caused due to the breach of the data of their customers. 

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by Malik korrich ~ mercredi 28 octobre 2015 0 commentaires