Hackers have managed to access some 1,827 customer accounts at Vodafone, the company has confirmed. Mobile telephone numbers and bank sort codes are among the information leaked, although credit and debit card numbers were not exposed.
"We can confirm that Vodafone UK was subject to an attempt to access some customers' account details between midnight on Wednesday 28 October and midday on Thursday 29 October," the company said in a statement. The affected accounts have now been blocked and if yours was among them you should have already been contacted by the firm.
"The information obtained by the criminals can not be used directly to access customers' bank accounts," adds the company. "However, this information does leave these 1,827 customers open to fraud and might also leave them open to phishing attempts."
Phishing expedition
That means keep an eye on your bank accounts and be very suspicious of any dodgy-looking emails that purport to come from Vodafone or your bank asking you to follow a link to log in somewhere on the web. Vodafone is working with the National Crime Agency (NCA) to investigate the incident.
The firm says if you're not one of those 1,827 people then your data remains safe and sound. According to the Guardian, the hackers obtained email addresses and passwords from a third-party source, enabling them to access the accounts in question.
Just over a week ago TalkTalk's databases suffered at the hands of a group of cybercriminals, and there have since been three arrests in connection with that attack. It's yet more proof that the old email address and password combination has had its day - but we're all stuck with it until the next-generation alternatives are more widely adopted.
