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LONDON (Alliance News) - Telecoms giant Vodafone Group PLC said Saturday that 1,827 Vodafone UK customers' accounts had been accessed, potentially leaving them open to fraud or 'phishing' attempts.
In a statement Vodafone said it had been "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 it had been informed the National Crime Agency, the Information Commissioner's Office and UK telecoms regulator Ofcom of the issue on Friday evening.
Vodafone said that the incident had been driven by criminals using email addresses and password acquired "from an unknown source external to Vodafone", and said its systems were not compromised or breached in any way.
Although the company said its security protocols were "fundamentally effective", it said the criminals potentially have access to the 1,827 customers' names, telephone numbers, bank sort codes, and the last 4 digits of their bank accounts.
However no credit or debit card numbers or details were obtained. This information does leave the customers open to fraud or potential phishing attempts - meaning an attempt to acquire customer data by masquerading as a trustworthy entity, such as a fake email from a bank.
Vodafone said it has blocked these customer accounts, and the affected customers are being contacted directly. It said that only the 1,827 customers have affected, and no other customers need to be concerned.
This follows a cyber attack on smaller peer TalkTalk Telecom Group PLC in the last few weeks. TalkTalk said it had been subject to a "significant and sustained" cyber attack on its website on October 21, however, on Friday it confirmed that this attack was smaller than initially anticipated.
TalkTalk confirmed that less than 21,000 unique bank account numbers and sort codes had been compromised, along with less than 28,000 obscured credit and debit card details.
In addition to the bank account details accessed, TalkTalk said fewer than 15,000 customer dates of birth had been breached, plus fewer than than 1.2 million customer email addresses, names and phone numbers.
Three individuals have been arrested in relation to the TalkTalk cyber attack, a 20-year-old from Staffordshire was arrested on Saturday, and prior to that a 16-year-old from Feltham, west London, and a 15-year-old from County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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