Vodafone Customer Details Accessed by Hackers

The company acknowledged that hackers had gained access to this information, but they maintained that none of their systems had been compromised. British newspaper the Guardian says the hackers obtained email addresses and passwords from a third party which enabled them to access the accounts.

Details are sketchy, but Blomberg reports the intrusion was detected last week, with “attempts to access customer details between midnight on Wednesday and noon on Thursday”. The National Crime Agency (NCA), the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Independent regulator and competition authority for the United Kingdom communications industries (Ofcom) were informed as soon as the attack occurred last Friday.

“We have already contacted the banks of affected customers to alert them to the situation and they are following established procedures in order to protect customers”, says Vodafone.

“The information obtained by the criminals cannot be used directly to access customers’ bank accounts”, says Vodafone.

Recent estimations place the number of Vodafone United Kingdom customers between 19 and 20 million. Vodafone said it had carried out mitigating actions so only a handful of customers had been subject to any suspicious activity. A company spokesman said that names, phone numbers, and bank details may have been stolen.

The recent attack comes after another mobile phone and broadband company TalkTalk was hacked, leaking personal and banking details to cyber attackers. It said that only the 1,827 customers have affected, and no other customers need to be concerned.

Two boys – a 15-year-old from County Antrim in Northern Ireland and a 16-year-old from Feltham, west London – were arrested and released on police bail over that incident.