Butlin's, a British Holiday Resort, Fall Victim to Email Phishing Scam

Butlin's, a British holiday resort, falls prey to the hackers attack when they witnessed a data breach by the unauthorised third-party. Butlin's agreed that hackers might have accessed around 34,000 records of their guest. However, the British holiday resort has not confirmed yet whether the hackers have taken information of all the 34,000 guests. BBC was told by the spokesman of the holiday resort that "we cannot be definitive at the moment with regard to whether all data was hacked."

The data that is supposedly at risk includes home addresses, names, booking reference numbers, email addresses, postal addresses, and telephone numbers, as per the company. However, Butlin's claimed that no payment details, user passwords, or financial data were compromised.

A spokesman of the holiday resort confirmed that this hacking has taken place in the last 72 hours (2nd week of August). The company further admitted that the hacking attack took place after they receive a phishing email.

"Butlin's take the security of our guest data very seriously and have improved a number of our security processes. I would like to apologise for any upset or inconvenience this incident might cause," said Dermot King, Managing Director of Butlin's.

Dermot King further added that the guests whose data were compromised have been informed directly by Butlin's regarding the data breach, what steps they should take, along with informing them about what has been done for resolving this situation. Besides, Butlin's also has set up a dedicated team for directly contacting the affected guests.

Information Commissioner's Office was reported about the breach by Butlin's within a time frame of 72-hour as per the requirement given in General Data Protection Regulation. As per the new General Data Protection Regulation data laws, the holiday resort might be penalized with a fine of 4% of their annual turnover or up to £18 Million, based on what were the circumstances when the breach took place.

The company further said that they will adopt more security practices for reducing the risk of data breach in future, so that their guests do not have to face this kind of trouble again.

» SPAMfighter News - 8/17/2018