Action Fraud UK has reported that the personal details of up to 2.4 million Carphone Warehouse customers have been accessed by hackers and 90,000 credit cards exposed, the mobile phone firm has admitted.

Carphone Warehouse, which is owned by Dixons Carphone said the “vast majority” of customers are unaffected, but if you’ve done business with OneStopPhoneShop.com, e2save.com, Mobiles.co.uk, TalkTalk Mobile, Talk Mobile or Carphone Warehouse then you might be involved.

The security breach was discovered on Wednesday last week but the company only released details about it on late on Saturday 8th August and confessed that the personal information of millions of customers – including bank details, addresses, names and dates of birth may have been accessed by hackers.

Up to 90,000 customers may also have had their encrypted credit card details accessed, it said in a statement.

The company has sent an email to anyone who may be affected by the hack, alerting them that they should notify their bank and check for any suspicious activity on their account.

Sebastian James, chief executive of Dixons Carphone, said: “We take the security of customer data extremely seriously, and we are very sorry people have been affected by this attack. We are, of course, informing anyone that may have been affected, and have put in place additional security measures.”

What can those who have been affected do?

• Contact your bank/credit card company, so that they can monitor for suspicious activity on your account.
• Change your password for your online account. Use three words or more and include a symbol and use upper and lower case letters and numbers. You should change passwords often and never use the same one twice.
• Monitor your account for any suspicious or unexpected activity.
• Beware of targeted phishing emails. If you receive unsolicited emails never reply with your full password, login details or account details. Don’t click on any links as you could end up downloading a virus.
• Be wary of anyone calling asking for personal information, bank details or passwords. If in doubt, just hang up.
• Watch out for signs of identity crime. Visit Experian, Equifax or Noddle to check your credit rating to make sure no one has applied for credit in your name.

 

For further information please visit Dixons Carphone website.