Feature
Only two days after Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel was forced to resign amid fallout from a massive cyber attack, French telecommunications giant Orange admitted that hackers have stolen the personal data of 1.3 million customers.
According to Orange, the attack took place last month and resulted in the theft of large amounts of personal data including telephone numbers, birth dates and email addresses.
Orange claims no credit or debit card information was compromised.
Seeing a Pattern
What makes this particularly embarrassing for Orange is that it is the second major security breach in a matter of months. According to a statement issued by Orange, “The data recovered could be used to contact those concerned by email, SMS or by phone, particularly for phishing purposes.”
Phishing attacks involve fake emails purportedly from a trustworthy entity sent to deceive people into revealing sensitive information.
If it is any consolation to the victims, the company claims the technical vulnerability that enabled attackers to take the information has now been closed.
In February, Orange reported a separate security breach. In that one, the personal data of 800,000 of its Internet clients was stolen.
