14 DAY TRIAL // A Vodafone UK spokesperson has acknowledged a data breach that exposed the personal details of around 2,000 company customers.
The incident took place during the past week, and Vodafone blames it on a third-party company that handled company data.
"This incident was driven by criminals using email addresses and passwords acquired from an unknown source external to Vodafone," reads the Vodafone statement. "Vodafone’s systems were not compromised or breached in any way."
According to an internal investigation, criminals got their hands on data that included customer names, mobile phone numbers, bank sort code, and the last four digits of their bank account.
The data breach headcount was estimated to be 1,827. The company adds that no credit or debit card data was lost in the breach.
Vodafone also says that the accounts for affected customers were blocked to prevent fraud and abuse, and that it started contacting victims directly.
The customers' banks were also informed, and Vodafone officials called local law enforcement agencies to help with the investigation.
Recent estimations have placed the number of Vodafone UK customers between 19 and 20 million. Vodafone has 461 million clients worldwide.
Just a week earlier, TalkTalk, one of UK's biggest ISP, was hacked as well. In that incident, TalkTalk lost data for around 4 million customers. Earlier during the year, TalkTalk suffered two more data breaches, losing in total data of around 10 million clients.