A Vodafone UK spokesperson has acknowledged a data breach that exposed the personal details of around 2,000 of the company's customers.
The incident took place over the past week and Vodafone is blaming a third-party company that handles corporate data.
“This incident was initiated by criminals using email addresses and passwords obtained from an unknown source outside of Vodafone,” Vodafone said. “Vodafone systems were not exposed or compromised in any way.”
According to an internal investigation, the criminals got their hands on data that included customer names, mobile phone numbers, bank codes and the last four digits of bank accounts.
The number of people affected by the data breach was estimated to be 1,827. The company adds that no credit or debit card details were lost in the breach.
Vodafone says that the accounts of affected customers have been blocked to prevent fraud and abuse and that it has begun contacting the victims directly.
The customers' banks were notified at the same time and Vodafone employees called local law enforcement agencies to assist with the investigation.
Recent estimates have placed the number of Vodafone UK customers at between 19 and 20 million. Vodafone has 461 million customers worldwide.
Just a week earlier, TalkTalk, one of the UK’s largest ISPs, was also breached. In that incident, TalkTalk lost data on around 4 million customers. Earlier in the year, TalkTalk suffered two more data breaches, losing a total of around 10 million customers.
