Insider Suspected In Massive Vodafone Hack
Operator says a highly sophisticated attack could have been perpetrated by one of its own
Vodafone has admitted one of its German servers was hacked and two million customers’ details stolen.
The operator said the hackers carried out a “highly sophisticated and illegal intrusion” and appeared to have been carried out by someone inside of Vodafone.
Vodafone hacked
Bank sort code and bank account numbers were taken, alongside names and addresses, but credit card details, mobile phone numbers, passwords or PIN numbers were not stolen.
“An individual has been identified by the police and their assets have been seized,” the company said in an emailed statement sent to TechWeekEurope.
UK users were not affected, but German users have been warned about potential dangers of user data going missing.
“In the absence of passwords, PINs or credit card details it is very unlikely that criminals would gain direct access to an individual’s bank account,” Vodafone added.
“However, there is a heightened risk that the criminals may request a fake direct debit application which would be immediately visible to the account holder and which could be immediately blocked or reversed under well-established banking protection measures.
“There is also a heightened risk that customers could be the victim of a ‘phishing’ attack under which criminals use personal information in a fake email to trick people into supplying further information online such as passwords or credit card numbers.”
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