- Freedom Mobile suffered a supply chain breach through a contractor’s account that exposed customers’ personal information.
- The stolen data included names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers and account numbers; Passwords and payment details are not affected.
- The company warns of phishing risks; There are no indications of a data breach yet, the investigation is still ongoing
Canadian telecommunications provider Freedom Mobile recently suffered an attack on its supply chain that resulted in the loss of sensitive data for an unknown number of customers.
In a data breach notice posted on its website earlier this week, Freedom said hackers hacked into a contractor’s account and used it to access personal information for a “limited number” of customers. The breach was discovered on October 23 and access was blocked.
But when the compromised account was locked and wiped, the hackers were able to steal full names, mailing addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers (home and mobile) and Freedom Mobile account numbers.
Phishing warning issued
Although the telco notes that no payment information or passwords were obtained during the attack, the criminals stole enough information to carry out extremely devastating phishing attacks.
For example, they may contact Freedom Mobile customers by pretending to be the telecommunications company and threaten to delete their account unless the victims log in urgently (via a fake login page that steals credentials) or download a program (which is actually malware). Such an email message, along with personally identifiable information, can appear credible to recipients and therefore lead to engagement.
At the time of writing, no attacker has claimed responsibility for the attack and Freedom Mobile has found no evidence that any data was leaked. However, users are advised to be alert to incoming messages, especially those claiming to be from the telecommunications sector and conveying a sense of urgency. “Freedom Mobile will never ask you for personal information via email or text, such as credit card numbers, banking information, passwords, or PINs,” the notice said.
Founded in 2008 as Wind Mobile, Freedom Mobile currently has more than two million customers across Canada. It was acquired by Videotron in 2023, bringing the total number of subscribers to over 3.5 million.
IN BeepTeam