Vodafone customer accounts hit by hackers

UK customers of Vodafone are the latest victims of a hack attack. The telecoms company said that nearly 2,000 customer accounts had been accessed this week, exposing personal data including phone numbers and bank account details.

The security breach took place earlier this week, but it was only this weekend that Vodafone went public about it. A spokesperson said that the attack "was driven by criminals using email addresses and passwords acquired from an unknown source external to Vodafone". There is warning that the owners of the affected accounts could be subject to phishing attacks.

Vodafone says that it is contacting any customer whose account was included in the attack, stressing that there was no need for anyone else to be concerned. The company issued a statement that says:

Whilst our security protocols were fundamentally effective, we know that 1,827 customers have had their accounts accessed, potentially giving the criminals involved the customer's name, their mobile telephone number, their bank sort code, the last four digits of their bank account.

Our investigation and mitigating actions have meant that only a handful of customers have been subject to any attempts to use this data for fraudulent activity on their Vodafone accounts.

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