Bell Canada is alerting some customers that their information has been illegally accessed in a potential data breach. The company’s notice doesn’t say how many Bell customers were affected but media reports say the total could be 100,000. Bell says the information consisted primarily of names and email addresses and that there’s no indication that any credit card, banking or other information was accessed. Lisa Baergen, Marketing Director at NuData Security commented below.
Lisa Baergen, Marketing Director at NuData Security:
“Another of the ever-happening breaches has been revealed, this time targeting Bell. It seems to have leaked customer names and emails only, no credit card information. However, we all know bad actors are very talented at preparing fraud schemes with that information, such as phishing scamps or dictionary attacks – where fraudsters try certain common passwords based on the user’s personal information.
“Bell is doing the right thing by evaluating the extent of the damage and keeping customers updated. However, to avoid damage after a breach, companies that share clients with Bell can consider applying multi-layered security solutions based on passive biometrics to protect their business and their customers from account takeover of another type of fraud. Online security technologies that evaluate a user or a transaction based on their behavior and not only on their – potentially stolen – static information, thwart all fraudulent attempts that inevitably come after a data breach.”
