Carphone Warehouse cyber attack ‘could affect up to 2.4 million customers’

It is believed that names, addresses, dates of birth and bank details may have been accessed during what the retailer described as a “sophisticated cyberattack”. Encrypted credit card details of up to 90,000 clients may also have been accessed.

A Carphone Warehouse spokesman said the attack was stopped “straight away” after its own systems discovered it on Wednesday afternoon.

The company said in a statement that it had learned of the data breach on August 5 and had taken immediate action to secure the systems.

It has been said that the cyber attack concerns the separately managed divisions of Carphone Warehouse which operate the websites OneStopPhoneShop.com, e2save.com and Mobiles.co.uk.

Last month Dixons Carphone reported a 20.6% jump in pre-tax profit to £381m in its maiden full year results since the merger between Dixons Retail and Carphone Warehouse.

Carphone Warehouse admitted over the weekend that a catastrophic data breach has potentially led to the theft of unencrypted, sensitive data belonging to up to 2.4 million customers.

‘The reality is that data breaches are no longer a question of if, but when, ‘ opined Mike Spykerman, vice president at security firm OPSWAT of the attack. The retailer also vows to close the security hole that hackers were able to infiltrate and further shore up its defenses against future attacks.

Although Dixons Carphone has now apologised for the incident, many customers aren’t happy that the company has delayed revealing the details until three days after it became aware of the issue.

Customers have been advised, by chief executive of Get Safe Online Tony Neate, to change their passwords to something unpredictable, and different for every account.

“The company has sent a letter to anyone who may be at risk via email, alerting them to the situation and providing information on what they can do next”, reports The Telegraph.

You can find the Carphone Warehouse FAQ on the hack by clicking on this link.