In a week that has been dominated by the huge data breach suffered by Sony, which has resulted in over 100 million user details being compromised, it seems cyber criminals have turned their attentions to another well known brand.
This week hackers successfully broke into the Fox Networks computer systems and stole the details of over 250,000 acts who applied for this year’s show in the U.S. This has resulted in senior chiefs from Fox as well as the shows creator, Simon Cowell, contacting the FBI to investigate the breach. Fox are worried that the data could now be used to con millions of dollars from the acts who’s information has been stolen.
Fox Broadcasting has since sent an email to all the acts warning them of the breach. The email admits to the breach and says that information including names, email addresses, zip codes, phone numbers, date of birth and gender could have all been accessed. They were keen to stress that no financial information was stolen during the breach.
The email went on to say “We are taking this matter very seriously and are working with federal law enforcement authorities to investigate this illegal action. The X Factor will never ask you to email personal information such as financial data, credit card numbers, Social Security numbers or the user name or passwords you use to access other websites. If you receive an email that appears to be from Fox.com or The X Factor asking for personal information, please delete it, as it did not come from us.”
With another data breach making headline news and with confidential data able to be exposed to both external and internal threats, companies large and small should be focusing on how safe their network is and whether their data is securely protected both on and offsite.
