TalkTalk Customer Data Breached, Hackers Claim Theft of Millions of Customer Records

TalkTalk investigates a major customer data breach after a hacker claims to have stolen personal information from millions of subscribers, a claim TalkTalk disputes.
TalkTalk Customer Data Breached, Hackers Claim Theft of Millions of Customer Records
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    UK telecoms giant TalkTalk is investigating a customer data breach after a hacker, using the alias “b0nd,” claimed to have stolen the personal information of millions of subscribers.

    TalkTalk spokesperson Liz Holloway confirmed the investigation, but strongly disputed the hacker’s claim of 18.8 million affected accounts, calling the figure “wholly inaccurate and very significantly overstated.”

    TechCrunch reports that TalkTalk currently has approximately 2.4 million customers.

    “As part of our regular security monitoring, given our ongoing focus on protecting customers’ personal data, we were made aware of unexpected access to, and misuse of, one of our third-party suppliers’ systems. Our Security Incident Response team are continuing to work with the supplier regarding this matter and protective containment steps were taken immediately.” Holloway stated.

    The suspected source of the breach appears to be CSG’s Ascendon platform, used by TalkTalk for subscription management. Screenshots shared by the hacker suggest this as the point of compromise.

    CSG spokesperson Kristine Østergaard confirmed that an “external party gained unauthorized access to a single provider’s data residing on a CSG platform” on January 21st. However, CSG maintains it has “no evidence” its systems were compromised or that it caused the TalkTalk breach.

    TalkTalk confirmed that only a small subset of customer details was stored within Ascendon and that “no billing or financial information was stored on this system.”

    The UK’s Information Commissioner criticized TalkTalk’s inadequate cybersecurity measures at the time. The ongoing investigation into this TalkTalk data breach and theft of customer data continues.

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