Pierluigi Paganini
May 07, 2014
Orange company was hit again by hackers, client database was breached by unknown attackers which have stolen the personal information on 1.3 million customers. According first news on the incident the hackers accessed by Orange clients personal details, including surnames, first names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth as well as the names of clients’ mobile and internet operators.
The news was reported by the company on Monday by the French telecom giant Orange, it’s the second time in the current year. Orange was already targeted on January 16, during that attack 800,000 records have been stolen by hackers.
Orange has issued an official announcement on Tuesday which tries to reassure the clients.
“limited amount of personal information concerning clients and future customers” was stolen during a security breach on April 18th.
In effect the data breach is dated back April 18th, but the Orange company delayed its disclosure to “lock” down affected system for census the affected clients.
Orange has started immediately the response procedure, it also warned its clients to be on the lookout for phishing and other illegal activities that could be carried out with the stolen data.
“The data collected could be used to contact people involved in e-mail, SMS or telephone, including for phishing” is the warning issued by the company.
The is the concrete risk that victims could be targeted by fraudulent activities like “click to call back” link, which, if pressed will prompt a member of staff to call the client to answer their questions.
Data breach has a serious impact on victims in term of reputation and financial losses, The recent report issued by the Ponemon Institute titles “Cost of Data Breach Study“, confirms that the average cost of a data breach for companies is increased about 15% respect 2012 reaching $3.5 million.
An impressive amount of money and the trend is growing.
(Security Affairs – Orange, Databreach)
