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UK-based water utility Southern Water has confirmed that hackers stole the personal data of more than 470,000 customers in a recent data breach.
Southern Water, which provides water and wastewater services to millions of people in the south east of England, said in a statement on Tuesday It plans to inform “5 to 10 percent” of its customer base that their personal information was stolen by hackers during a cyberattack in January.
The utility giant declined to say how many people have been affected so far. Southern Water spokesperson Simon Fluendi told TechCrunch that the company has about 4.7 million customers, and he did not dispute that between 235,000 and 470,000 customers had data stolen.
Southern Water says the “5 to 10 percent” figure is based on its ongoing forensic investigation, which suggests the actual number of affected individuals may be higher.
Southern Water declined to specify what data was stolen. bbc news report The hackers gained access to customers’ dates of birth, National Insurance numbers, bank account details and reference numbers.
Southern Water said it also planned to notify “all of our current employees and some former employees” about the breach of their personal information. In its latest annual report, Southern Water says it has approximately 6,000 employees.
The cyber attack on Southern Water in January, which was the first by the company Revealed on January 23It was claimed by the Black Basta ransomware group, a gang linked to Russia that claimed responsibility last year UK outsourcing giant Capita hacked,
Southern Water has not yet commented on the specifics of the incident or how its systems were compromised.
Blackjack listed Southern Water on its dark web leak site shortly after the cyberattack last month and claimed to have stolen 750 gigabytes of sensitive data from the organization, including corporate documents and customers’ personal documents.
The listing threatened to publish the stolen data if the ransom demand was not paid, including screenshots claiming to show some of the stolen data, including employees’ passports and identity cards.
At the time of writing, Southern Water is no longer listed on Black Basta’s website. It’s not unusual for companies to suffer who pay ransom to hackers Their public list should be removed. Southern Water declined to say whether it had paid the ransom demand.
In its statement published on Tuesday, Southern Water says it is working with cyber security experts to monitor the dark web. Since the utility’s listing on the ransomware gang’s site, Southern Water says it has “found no new evidence of the data involved in this cyber incident being published online.”
Southern Water says it has informed the UK data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, about the incident.
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