The affected division of Carphone Warehouse operates the websites OneStopPhoneShop.com, e2save.com and Mobiles.co.uk, and provides services to iD Mobile (UK), TalkTalk Mobile, Talk Mobile and some Carphone Warehouse customers.
Advertisement
An unnamed source with knowledge of the attack on Carphone Warehouse told the Daily Telegraph that its online systems were getting swamped with junk traffic in the run-up to the discovery of the breach last Wednesday (August 5).
“It appears that 90,000 of the 2.4 million affected customers may have had their credit card data accessed, though it was encrypted”, he added.
“It also highlights the lack of consumer confidence in the ability of businesses to store their data securely has taken a huge hit, as some customers are expressing they should have been informed of a huge hack when it was first discussed on Wednesday, not three days later”.
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”.
The shop has warned customers to notify their bank and credit card company so they can monitor activity, while passwords should also be changed as soon as possible.
One user, tenkodragon, wrote: ‘”Really annoyed and disappointed that I learned about CarphoneWarehouse customer details hack via news; no contact from company”. At this time, Carphone Warehouse says that there is no evidence of customers’ personal data being sold or misused and the company has implemented additional security measures to prevent such attacks in the future.
Sebastian James, chief executive of Dixons Carphone, apologised for the incident.
A spokesman for the office said that any instance of lost personal data will put a person at risk of identity theft.
“We are, of course, informing anyone that may have been affected and we have put in place additional security measures“.
The firm has since taken action to secure these systems and has launched an investigation with a cyber security firm to determine what data was affected by the attack.
Advertisement
Most customers at Carphone Warehouse, Currys and PCWorld units had data stored on a separate system and were unaffected, the company said.
