Nearly 2000 Vodafone customers at risk after personal details are accessed

Close to 2,000 Vodafone customers are thought to be at risk of fraud after it was discovered that their personal details have been accessed.

The telecoms giant said criminals had attempted to access some of its UK customers' account details between midnight on Wednesday 28th October and midday on Thursday 29th October.

The company said it "initiated a comprehensive investigation" and notified the National Crime Agency (NCA), the ICO and Ofcom of the issue on the evening of Friday 30th October.

"This incident was driven by criminals using email addresses and passwords acquired from an unknown source external to Vodafone," it said. "Vodafone’s systems were not compromised or breached in any way."

It said that while its security protocols are "fundamentally effective", 1,827 customers were known to have had their accounts accessed, which had potentially given the criminals access to the name, mobile telephone number, bank sort code and last four digits of the bank account of each of those customers.

It confirmed that no credit or debit card numbers or details were obtained.

"Our investigation and mitigating actions have meant that only a handful of customers have been subject to any attempts to use this data for fraudulent activity on their Vodafone accounts," it said.

"The information obtained by the criminals can not be used directly to access customers’ bank accounts. However, this information does leave these 1,827 customers open to fraud and might also leave them open to phishing attempts."

No other customers needed to be concerned, Vodafone stressed.

The company will continue to work with the NCA, it added.