Bell Canada has suffered another data breach, this time affecting up to 100,000 customers, involving user names and/or account numbers.
The company told The Globe and Mail the RCMP is investigating the hack, while the Office of the Privacy Commissioner has been contacted.
“We apologize to our customers and are contacting all those affected,” said BCE spokesman Mark Langton, adding “There is an active RCMP investigation of the incident and Bell has notified appropriate government agencies including the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.”
Bell says hackers were able to access names, email addresses and “in some cases”, phone numbers, user names and/or account numbers as well. The company reiterated there was “no indication” credit card or banking information was breached.
Numerous customers received emails this morning, from Bell’s executive vice-president of customer experience, John Watson, saying some customer information was illegally accessed.
“It is good practice to change your passwords and security questions frequently and to regularly review all your service and financial accounts for any suspicious activity,” read the email from Watson.
Back in May 2017, Bell refused to comply with a hacker’s ransom demand, which resulted in a leak of 1.9 million customer emails. The company stated at the time no financial information or sensitive information was accessed.
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I worked at Bell for several years. Their IT department sucks and their IT practices are completely out of date because they believe in “promoting from within.” As a result of this policy, instead of hiring the best people, their top IT managers are all just Bell lifers with little/no education or qualifications.
Not surprised
I was part of a team of 6 security guys in Network Technology at Bell. I left in 2011. Everyone form that team left by 2013. Cost cutting for security projects and no raises were the reason everyone left. Nobody regrets leaving. We were not promoted within, we were hired back in the 2000s with degrees in Comp Sci or Engineering plus Security Certification Credentials. Bell HR is out of touch with the Security space. I look at some of the Security job postings from Bell lately and the salaries for those security positions are a joke. Publically traded companies in Canada do not have to disclose data breaches, most data breaches are undisclosed to the public. There are a lot more data breaches than what makes the news.
I suppose by “no indication” of banking information stolen, they mean the hacker didn’t leave a note listing everything he stole eh?
(He/she) ?