Key Takeaways
- Comcast confirms 230,000+ customers were affected during a ransomware attack on a third-party debt collection service provider.
- The ransomware attack compromised the names, addresses, SSNs, and Comcast account and ID numbers of customers.
- Comcast is offering a year of free credit monitoring for those who may have been impacted.
Data breaches have become the norm among major tech companies. We’ve reported on countless incidents affecting everyone from AT&T and T-Mobile to Roku, Tile, and Verizon. Many of these companies have also been hit with hefty fines by the FCC, yet the data breaches just keep coming. The latest to join the list is Comcast, which confirmed that more than 230,000 customers were impacted by a data breach involving the debt collector Financial Business and Consumer Solutions (FBCS).
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Comcast made it clear that the breach relates to a February cyberattack on FBCS, which impacted more than 4 million people. Its own systems, including those of its broadband unit Xfinity, were not broken into. FBCS informed Comcast in July that its customer data had been affected, saying an “unauthorized party downloaded data from FBCS systems and encrypted some systems as part of a ransomware attack,” according to a filing with Maine’s attorney general on Friday (via TechCrunch).
The data breach affects 237,703 Comcast subscribers, with hackers getting hold of their names, addresses, Social Security numbers, birthdates, and Comcast account and ID numbers. Comcast says the data included in the breach “dates from around 2021” and that it stopped using FBCS’s services in 2020.
Comcast data breach puts you at huge risk
Source: Comcast
Comcast’s filing confirms it was a ransomware attack, which means hackers locked the data and are asking for a fee to get it back. FBCS itself hasn’t revealed the nature of the attack yet. Ransomware attacks aren’t rare, and most of the time, companies can’t do much except pay up. For example, AT&T allegedly paid over $370,000 in ransom after a hacker stole important customer data.
If the hackers behind the FBCS data breach leak the info online, like on dark web forums, or sell it to other cybercriminals, it could be misused in more ways than you can imagine. For starters, scammers might use it for identity theft, to send potential victims phishing letters, or even for blackmail. Comcast is offering a year of free credit monitoring for those who may have been impacted through data breach response firm Cyex to minimize the damage.
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