Carphone Warehouse suffers from cyber attack

The Carphone Warehouse is the latest company to be targeted by cyber criminals as a “sophisticated” hack took place on the 5th of August, putting personal details of up to 2.4 million customers at risk. In addition to that, around 90,000 Carphone Warehouse customers may have had their credit card details accessed, though this information was encrypted.

The mobile phone retailer admitted the hack today in a letter sent out to customers (Via: BBC), which explains: “We discovered that the IT systems of three of our online UK businesses had been subject to sophisticated cyber-attack. At this stage, our investigation indicates that some of the data held on our systems has been accessed and this may include some personal details, including customer name, address, date of birth, bank and encrypted card details.”

In all, three parts of the company were affected, including Mobiles.co.uk, e2save.com and onestopphoneshop.com, all smaller subsidiaries that tend to offer slightly cheaper tariffs compared to the main Carphone Warehouse store. As always when these situations crop up, the company wants to assure customers that it takes “security of customer data extremely seriously”.

Those affected by the attack should be contacted directly as the investigation goes on. An FAQ page has also been launched to answer some of the questions related to the attack.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Unfortunately these attacks on customer user data are becoming fairly common. While the credit card information is encrypted and likely safe, a lot of other personal details like email addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth, can all be sold on to phishing scammers. 

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