Over 8,000 Globe prepaid subscribers may find themselves the target of phishing attempts and other online risks after Globe Telecom Inc. reported a data breach.
Phishing, as defined by phishing.org, is a cybercrime in which a target or targets are contacted by email, telephone or text message by someone posing as a legitimate institution to lure individuals into providing sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card details, and passwords. The information is then used to access important accounts and can result in identity theft and financial loss.
The National Privacy Commission advised affected Globe subscribers to monitor their online and offline accounts for any unusual activity, or better yet, to change passwords and other means of identity verification.
The commission said Globe Telecom’s data protection officer sent notice on January 27 about a personal data breach due to a system error.
The telco said the breach potentially affected 8,851 customers.
“Our team is still evaluating the incident and verifying the information given to us, following our standard procedure,” the commission stated.
Globe Telecom, for its part, said it has rectified the issue, which occurred when the wrong confirmation receipt was sent to another individual.
“It was just a case of sending the data registration confirmation receipt to the wrong individual and was not sent en masse or as a group of data,” the company said in its statement.
The breach affected prepaid customers who have registered to the On The List program to avail of concert tickets and other music venues of Globe events.
"The On The List registration site was taken down immediately to remove access to potential registrants at the time and we have notified all affected prepaid customers of the issue,” Globe chief information security officer Anton Bonifacio said.
Globe Telecom has about 60 million prepaid customers. The affected customers comprise 0.014% of the total. (Ventures Cebu)
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