Samsung has become the latest company to be struck down by cyber attackers. Over the weekend, the South Korean company notified its users that some of their personal information was compromised.
South African customers probably don’t have much to worry about, unless they’ve availed themselves of services offered by Samsung’s American wing. The breach appears to be regional, but the company stressed that “…Social Security numbers or credit and debit card numbers” remain safe.
Samsung’s security
That did leave the door open for a batch of other information to be siphoned. This includes “name, contact and demographic information, date of birth, and product registration information”. It’s possible that some or all of this info was jacked from customers affected. The stolen info doesn’t appear to be a monolithic block that impacts every user equally.
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Samsung hasn’t explained exactly what happened, saying only that “an unauthorized third party” accessed Samsung US’ systems in late July. The company became aware of the hack on 4 August. The specifics of the hack — how entry was made and which systems were affected — were not detailed.
This might well be on the advice of law enforcement since even the company’s FAQ sidesteps that specific question. The company has brought in a “leading outside cybersecurity firm” and police assistance to investigate.
Users who had their information stolen don’t have to take any immediate action. Samsung says that devices are safe, but that users notified that their data was nabbed should be more suspicious of unsolicited communications than usual.