14 DAY TRIAL // Fox has notified around 250,000 US residents who signed up for X Factor auditions that their personal details might have been compromised after a hacker broke into its systems.
In an email sent to individuals possibly affected by this security breach, the company noted that exposed information might include their name, email address, zip code, phone number (if provided), date of birth and gender.
"This week, we learned that computer hackers illegally accessed information you and others submitted to us to receive information about The X Factor auditions," Fox wrote.
"We are taking this matter very seriously and are working with federal law enforcement authorities to investigate this illegal action," it added.
While financial information or Social Security numbers have not been compromised, there is a high risk that the exposed information will be used in attacks designed to obtain them.
Users are advised to be alert and not respond to or act upon emails seeking additional personal or financial information that purport to come from Fox or The X Factor.
"The X Factor will never ask you to email personal information such as financial data, credit card numbers, Social Security numbers or the user name or passwords you use to access other websites.
"If you receive an email that appears to be from Fox.com or The X Factor asking for personal information, please delete it, as it did not come from us," the company stresses.
It seems the number of large data breaches has spiked in recent months. Last month email marketing services provider Epsilon announced a massive breach that affected millions of consumers in US and abroad.
The trend continued with the breach of personally identifiable information of 3.5 million Texas residents at the Texas Comptroller's office and escalated with the recent Sony breaches which affected up to 76 million PlayStation Network users.