Carphone Warehouse, a U.K. cellular retailer, has announced on Saturday a data breach that puts at risk 2.4 million customers. According to reports, hackers gained access to the company's database that stores personal information of its online customers. Up to 2.4 million customers might be affected by the cyber-attack, according to Carphone Warehouse. This is the latest high-profile breach of online privacy in a series of similar attacks, including the dating site Ashley Madison.
Last month, the website Ashley Madison specialized in extramarital affairs announced that its systems were breached by a hackers attack. The intruders were threatening to release the names and personal preferences of the 37 million users registered with the online dating agency unless the company is shutting down their website. The hackers claimed to be in possession of personal information of the account holders, such as names and addresses.
The U.K. cellular retailer Carphone Warehouse declared in a press release that its mobile internet services and its websites had been breached by hackers. An investigation by company's security experts indicated that 2.4 million customers may have been affected by access to their personal data which may include the date of birth, name, addresses as well as bank details. The company also added that 90,000 customers may have been exposed to accessing their "encrypted credit card data".
According to Carphone Warehouse, the security experts within the company took immediate action to protect its systems and put in place additional measures to prevent further attacks. The company also launched an investigation with a cyber-security firm in order to evaluate exactly what data was affected.
The company started to contact all those customers who may have been affected in order to "give them the advice to reduce any risk and minimize inconvenience," according to the press release. However, the unfortunate "reality is that data breaches are no longer a question of if, but when," according to the vice president of San Francisco software company OPSWAT, Mike Spykerman, He added that even if some of the information on Carphone Warehouse's database was encrypted, "a lot of personal data was not.
