May 6, 2011 14:05 GMT  ·  By

Best Buy has warned its customers for the second time in the course of two months that their email addresses might have been compromised as a result of a security breach at one of its service providers.

However, according to the retailer, the compromised party was no longer a business partner at the time of the security breach on April 22.

The business relationship was terminated prior to the incident due to an unrelated strategic decision, a Best Buy spokesperson said.

Despite this, the former partner still had the email addresses of the company's customers on file when the compromise occurred. As a result, the retailer has launched legal action against the affected vendor.

"We believe the only information taken was your email address, and that no other information was accessed. We do not believe that Best Buy was specifically targeted in this breach," the company wrote in the notification email.

It also warned affected customers to watch out for possible scam emails which they might receive as a result of this breach. This includes emails containing links or attachments that might appear to come from legitimate sources.

"Best Buy will never ask you to provide or confirm any information, including credit card numbers, unless you are on our secure e-commerce site, www.bestbuy.com, or call us directly to place an order. If you receive an email asking for personal information, delete it. It did not come from Best Buy," the company advises.

Best Buy was also one of the over fifty companies affected by the major breach at email marketing services provider Epsilon last month, which resulted in the names and email addresses of millions of consumers being exposed.

The type of business and identity of the compromised service provider were not disclosed, so it's not known if other companies are affected or how large the breach really is.