Virgin Media Data Leak Exposes Details of 900,000 Customers

What happened?

Unlike the T-Mobile data breach that involved a sophisticated cyber
attack, Virgin Media said the incident was neither a cyber attack
nor the company’s database was hacked.

Rather the personal details of around 900,000 Virgin Media
customers were exposed after one of its marketing databases was
left unsecured on the Internet and accessible to anyone without
requiring any authentication.

“The precise situation is that information stored on one of our
databases has been accessed without permission. The incident did
not occur due to a hack, but as a result of the database being
incorrectly configured,” the company said in a note published
on its website on Thursday night.
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According to the notification, Virgin Media said the exposed
database was accidentally left unsecured on the Internet from April
19, 2019—that’s almost a year—and was recently accessed by an
unauthorized party at least once.

What type of information was accessed?

The exposed database stored the information (listed below) on both
customers and potential customers, including “fixed-line customers
representing approximately 15% of that customer base,” said Virgin
Media CEO Lutz Schüler.

• customer names,
• home addresses,
• email addresses,
• phone numbers,
• technical and product information, which includes any requests
  people may have made using forms on the company’s website, and
• dates of birth ‘in a very small number of cases.’

“Please note that this is all of the types of information in the
database, but not all of this information may have related to every
customer,” Virgin Media said.

The company assured its customers that the misconfigured
marketing database did not include affected customers’ account
passwords or financial information such as credit cards or bank
account numbers.

However, Schüler said the company doesn’t know “the extent of
the access or if any information was actually used.”

What is Virgin Media now doing?

The company said the unauthorized access to the database has been
shut down immediately following the discovery and that it launched
a full independent forensic investigation to determine the extent
of the breach incident.
The company is also contacting affected customers of security
failure and has already notified the Information Commissioner’s
Office.

What affected customers should do now?

Affected customers should be suspicious of phishing emails, which
are usually the next step of cybercriminals with such data in hands
to trick users into giving away further details like their
passwords and banking information.

“We urge people to remain cautious before clicking on an unknown
link or giving any details to an unverified or unknown party.
Online security advice and help on a range of topics are available
on our website,” Virgin Media said.

Though the compromised data doesn’t include any banking or
financial data, it is always a good idea to be vigilant and keep a
close eye on your bank and payment card statements and report any
unusual activity to your respective bank.

For more information regarding the security incident, Virgin
Media customers can visit the company’s website or call their
customer service line on 0345 454 1111.