Customers of Vodafone Exposed to Internet Attacks after Hacking Incident

Dnaindia.com reported on 1st November, 2015, quoting the UK-based telecom giant, as saying "Around 2,000 Vodafone customers have been exposed to fraud after criminals accessed their personal details on the Internet".

The fraudsters are believed to have used passwords and usernames which were purchased on the "dark web" to access the online accounts of precisely 1,827 users of Vodafone mobile phone.

The cyber criminals were potentially able to gain the names of customers, their mobile numbers, the sort codes of their banks and the last 4 digits of the bank account numbers.

Dnaindia.com published news on 1st November, 2015, quoting a statement of Vodafone as "The information collected by the criminals cannot be used directly to access bank accounts of customers. However, this information leave these 1,827 customers exposed to deceit, besides leaving them exposed to phishing scams".

The company having over 18 million customers in UK warned affected customers to be careful about suspicious phishing emails supposedly from Vodafone and asking for their full bank details.

The scam is known as phishing that is, sending of deceptive emails emulating to be from well-known companies.

Bbc.com published news on 31st October, 2015, quoting a Spokesman of Vodafone, as saying that the accounts affected have been frozen and the concerned banks have been informed also.

Vodafone added that the National Crime Agency (NCA), Office of the Information Commissioner and Ofcom have been informed about the incident.

Bbc.com published news on 31st October, 2015, quoting a Spokeswoman of NCA, as saying that the NCA can assert that Vodafone has contacted them in relation to the hijacking of customer database and they are in talks with Vodafone. Anyone, believing that he/she has been subjected to attempted or successful deceit or other cyber crime, must report the crime to action fraud at their online address www.actionfraud.police.uk.

To minimize the attacks, security experts recommend some tips to users. Firstly, you should be careful of phishing emails which try to make you to submit personal information on a genuine-looking form of an organization. Secondly, you should be careful while trusting regarding submitting your personal information on the Internet. You should always keep your banking passwords, other credentials and login details undisclosed.

» SPAMfighter News - 11/4/2015