UK smartphone retailer Carphone Warehouse has been the subject of a devastating hack, with 2.4 million customers potentially affected.
The attack has seen the personal data of a number of the store’s customers having potentially been put at risk along with over 90,000 credit card details being in the firing line, too. Carphone Warehouse owners Dixons Carphone have said that the “vast majority” of its customers have not had their personal information placed at risk, though the company has informed them of the attack and have “put in place additional security measures” to ensure that it does not escalate, according to Dixons’ chief executive Sebastian James.
This has also placed a number of websites owned by Dixons Carphone at risk, with the likes of Mobiles.co.uk, OneStopPhoneShop.com, e2save.com, TalkTalk Mobile and Talk Mobile also falling victim to the hack.
An email sent out to customers of Mobiles.co.uk reads:
Dear customer,
I am writing to you as a precaution after we discovered on the 5th of August that some of our IT systems had been subjected to a sophisticated cyber attack.
We immediately took action to secure these systems and launched a full investigation with a leading cyber security firm to help us understand the impact of this attack. Our investigation is still going on.
At this stage, our investigation indicates that some of the data held on our systems has been accessed and this may include some of your personal details, including your name, address, date of birth and bank details.
We take the security of your data extremely seriously, and we have put in place additional security measures to prevent further attacks. Nevertheless, we felt it was important to let you know as soon as possible.
The email also recommends that customers notify their bank and credit card company so that they can monitor the activity on their account, be careful of anyone calling asking for bank details, personal information and/or passwords, and to contact Experian or Equifax in order to check their credit rating in case any loans have been taken out using their account.
