Tag: data breach

Data Breach Affects Major Fashion Brands

Brands including AX Paris, DLSB, Elle Belle Attire, Perfect Handbags and Traffic People are among those affected by a data breach at IT ecommerce supplier Fashion Nexus with White Room Solutions.

Fashion Nexus stated that that on or around 9 July a “white hat hacker” or “ethical hacker” breached one of company’s web servers. Fashion Nexus advised its clients using the software to file reports with the Information Commissioner’s Office and Fashion Nexus also filed a breach report.

Around 650,000 of its clients’ customers were believed to be affected.

The majority had their names and email addresses accessed, and one-fifth also had their home address details accessed. There was no payment card information stored in the databases. But the data did include hashed passwords, names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other data.

Rob Sherwood, director at Fashion Nexus, said: “Our experience with this as a small company has been extremely stressful and unsettling. Contrary to the way we’ve been portrayed in the IT security press, we care deeply about our clients and the rights of their customers.

“As a small business with limited resource and funding, we had put in place security measures but clearly, somehow, this wasn’t sufficient to prevent an attack, and we can’t apologise enough to our clients and their customers.”

The personally identifiable information accessed can lead to scammers carrying out identity fraud and identity theft.

If you are a customer of one of the affected brands, then change your password immediately and also the login and passwords of any other accounts using the same login details.

Do click on the Facebook or Twitter icons on top right to follow Fight Back Ninja.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Butlin’s Data Breach

Butlin’s – the holiday camps company has confirmed that the records of up to 34,000 guests have been accessed by hackers.

The stolen data does not include payment details, but does include customer names, holiday dates, postal and email addresses and telephone numbers.

The compromise is believed to have been caused by a phishing email.

Under the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), British companies must notify the Information Commissioner’s Office of any data breaches within 72 hours or face a fine. Butlin’s say they have done so.

The company said its own investigations have not found any fraudulent activity related to this event, but anyone whose records have been accessed by hackers needs to beware of calls, emails etc. from people claiming to be from Butlin’s and seeking more information

Butlin’s says it is contacting all those affected by the data breach.

If you believe your data may have been included in the hacked data then contact Butlin’s directly and be careful over any contact from Butlin’s – ensure they are genuine not scammers looking to trick you.

Do Share this post on social media – click on the post title then scroll down to the social media share buttons.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Dixons Carphone Data Breach

Dixons Carphone admitted there had been a data breach in 2017 which included 5.8 million credit and debit cards.  105,000 of those cards are not the chip-and-pin type. The chip and pin cards are assumed to be safe from fraud but this may be a false assumption.

Apparently, the hackers had tried to gain access to one of the processing systems used by Currys PC World and Dixons Travel stores.

Dixons also announced that the personal details of 1.2 million people (name, address, email address) may have been exposed.

STOP PRESS: Dixons Carphone has just increased that estimate from 1.2 million to 10 million people whose information may have been compromised.

Dixons Carphone said it had no evidence that any of the cards had been used fraudulently following the breach.

The incident happened before the new GDPR regulation came into force or Dixons Carphone would be looking at potentially much higher fines than currently expected.

Dixons Carphone said that “unauthorised access” of data held by the company had prompted an investigation, the hiring of external security experts and efforts to shore up its security defences. It has informed police, regulators at the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Financial Conduct Authority.

The data about these cards that may have been compromised does not contain PIN numbers or the CVV number and does not contain authentication data that would enable cardholder identification or a purchase to be made.  At least that’s the theory, but hackers and scammers can use starting information to get access to more information and then perpetrate fraud.

“The National Cyber Security Centre is working with Dixons Carphone plc and other agencies to understand how this data breach has affected people in the UK and advise on mitigation measures.

Do enter your email address and click on the subscribe button on top right to keep up to date with new posts.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Ticketmaster Data Breach Failings

Ticketmaster is a well-known global ticket selling business and they suffered a data breach starting in February 2018 and continuing through to late June.

A piece of malware on a customer service system operated by a third party had been exporting customer data to a scammer and Ticketmaster claim to have known nothing about this until June 23rd.

However, Digital bank Monzo did spot in April that customers’ cards were being compromised and warned Ticketmaster but “couldn’t get any traction” out of the company.

Monzo contacted all of its customers who had ever dealt with Ticketmaster – about 5,000 – and replaced their cards.

It also told banks that are part of the UK Finance group in April that it was aware of what appeared to be a significant data breach at Ticketmaster.

Ticketmaster say they investigated at the time but found no problem. The fault was in third party software not Ticketmaster’s own software, but that doesn’t excuse their apparent lack of responsibility for their customers who were being compromised.

Ticketmaster eventually realised there was a serious problem and said customers who bought concert, theatre and sporting event tickets between February and 23 June 2018 may have been affected by the incident, which involved malicious software being used to steal people’s names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, payment details and Ticketmaster login details.

The breach also affects customers of two other UK websites owned by Ticketmaster: TicketWeb and the resale website Get Me In!

Ticketmaster claims that the data for less than 40,000 people was affected.

Ticketmaster could face questions over whether there was a delay in disclosing the breach after it emerged that some UK banks had known about the incident since early April.

Ticketmaster has subsequently warned customers: “We recommend that you monitor your account statements for evidence of fraud or identity theft.

Ticketmaster said it was offering affected customers a free 12-month identity monitoring service. There is a dedicated website at security.ticketmaster.co.uk, and customers can also email [email protected] for further information or to register their concern.

Companies need to protect their customer’s data, but also how they deal with such problems when they occur,  can affect the outcome as much as the details of the actual problem. Ticketmaster have not come out of this very well.

Do leave a comment on this post – click on the post title then scroll down to leave your comment.

Fightback Ninja Signature

MyFitnessPal Data Stolen

Sportswear brand Under Armour announced that its subsidiary MyFitnessPal suffered a significant data beach, compromising up to 150 million accounts.

The account information involved includes user names, email addresses and hashed passwords, but no financial information such as credit card numbers or identifiers such as social security numbers.

The breach has not exposed particularly sensitive user data, but it does affect a huge number of users and this has caused Under Armour’s stock to drop 4 percent. The breach occurred in February but was only identified in March. The company has been working to notify affected users and is expected to work with the police and data security firms to trace the source of the breach.

“Four days after learning of the issue, the company began notifying the MyFitnessPal community via email and through in-app messaging. The notice contains recommendations for MyFitnessPal users regarding account security steps they can take to help protect their information,” Under Armour said in a statement. “The company will be requiring MyFitnessPal users to change their passwords and is urging users to do so immediately.”

In this case, the data storage was robust and the hackers have 150 million email addresses to sell but there’s little else they can do with the data.

If you are a registered user of MyFitnessPal – change your password immediately and if any of your other accounts have the same login and password then change them as well as hackers will try to find other accounts in your name.

Users of MyFitnessPal should be wary of emails in the coming weeks as there are likely to be scam messages and in particular may be messages that appear to be from MyFitnessPal but are from scammers.

Do enter your email address and click on the subscribe button on top right to keep up to date with new posts.

Fightback Ninja Signature

What If Your Business Has a Data Breach

If your business suffers a data breach i.e. hackers access your system and steal confidential information then you have a lot to do to deal with the breach, communicate with all affected parties and put in place better security to prevent another breach.

How well you deal with the breach often affects the total cost and the level of damage to your business reputation.

These four steps can help:-

1. Investigate the Breach

  1. How did it happen?
  2. What was stolen?
  3. Can the hackers regain entry to your systems?

You’ll need to know exactly what information was lost in the data breach.

Less sensitive information includes  name, address. phone number etc. This can be used by scammers and cold callers but that information is readily available for most people through the phone directory, social media and  the Electoral register.

More sensitive information includes date of birth, name, financial details, payment card details.  Combined with the less sensitive information this can be used for identity fraud.

If the stolen data includes names with login and passwords then you need to act fast to warn people to change their passwords.

2. Determine the Possible Damage

Once you know what data has been stolen, you need to understand how this can affect people i.e how this data can be used by criminals. Will they likely sell the information to a competitor or to other scammers or ransom it back to you?

3. Communicate with All Interested Parties

You need to inform all affected parties ASAP.  This may be customers, partners, staff, suppliers etc. If the breach is serious then you should inform the Information Commissioners Office.  If relevant inform the Police.

4. Increase Your Security

Unless you have security experts, you may need to hire experts to assess your systems and see how security can be improved. Start enacting those improvements straightaway and of course close off whatever method the hackers used to get into your systems.

A data breach can be very serious and must be dealt with quickly and efficiently to minimise damage to your reputation.

 Do click on the Facebook or Twitter icons on top right to follow Fight Back Ninja.

Fightback Ninja Signature