TalkTalk Breach Fraud Risk

In this story the customer has lost £2800 – the bank and, so far, TalkTalk will not refund.

TalkTalk, the phone and broadband giant with 4 million customers, has admitted it suffered a major data breach in which account numbers, addresses and phone numbers have fallen into the hands of online criminals – who have used the data to steal thousands of pounds.

Customers .. complain that they have received calls purporting to be from TalkTalk, but which turned out to be fraudsters. Customers say the callers know their TalkTalk account numbers and other personal details, which they use to attempt to gain access to the customer’s computer and to raid their bank account.

data breach at TalkTalk, thought to have emerged from one of its Indian call centres

a woman claiming to be from TalkTalk’s fraud team who told him they had detected hackers trying to gain access to his internet account via his router. .. he was asked to download some software which allowed the caller to take over Smith’s laptop remotely. Almost immediately his screen flashed up with “files with red crosses” which he was told needed to be removed.

TalkTalk say:

“We want to reassure customers that no sensitive information like bank account details has been illegally accessed, and TalkTalk Business customers are not affected. We have taken serious steps to remedy this and we are continuing to work with the ICO [Information Commissioner’s Office]. We want to help our customers protect themselves from scams so we are writing to all customers again to warn them about this criminal activity, with full advice, support and a reminder of the many free services TalkTalk offers to try to stop malicious scams reaching them.”

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See:

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/feb/27/threat-to-millions-of-talktalk-customers
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/05/talktalk-customers-india-based-scam-calls-prompting-fears-data-leak