The credit and debit card details of almost six million Dixons Carphone customers were stolen in the breach, the Evening Standard newspaper reported today. They also noted that most of the 5.9 million cards were protected by chip and pin.
In addition to the payment data, other sensitive information of 1.2 million UK customers, including their addresses and phone numbers, were also hacked.
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The retail group confirmed the incident via a statement, and said customers of Dixons Travel and Currys PC World, both of which it owns, were targeted.
"We are extremely disappointed and sorry for any upset this may cause. The protection of our data has to be at the heart of our business, and we've fallen short here,” Alex Baldock, the chief executive of Dixons Carphone, said.
He went on to say that they haven’t found any cases of the data being used for fraud yet, and insisted they are “taking this extremely seriously.” Mr. Baldock also said they are in the process of launching an investigation.
The identity of the hacker or potential network of hackers remains unknown at this point.
Earlier this week, Yahoo was fined around $330,000 by Britain’s privacy watchdog for failing to protect customer information against hackers several years ago.
The likelihood of Dixons Carphone being fined for this data breach is currently unclear.
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