According to reports over the weekend, Vodafone Australia has been the victim of a serious security breach which saw customers' personal details published to the internet.
Details leaked are said to have included names, addresses, driver's licence numbers and credit card details, though the firm denies these details were ever publically available.
It was also reported that criminal groups have paid for the private details of some Vodafone customers to blackmail them.
According to Sky News, a Vodafone spokesman said that customer details are not 'publicly available on the internet'.
“Customer information is stored on Vodafone's internal systems and accessed through a secure web portal, accessible to authorised employees and dealers via a secure login and password,” the statement continued.
“Any unauthorised access to the portal will be taken very seriously, and would constitute a breach of employment or dealer agreement and possibly a criminal offence.”
We’ve contacted Vodafone to see if its New Zealand customers have been caught up in the breach.
Update: Vodafone New Zealand says that your secrets are safe with them. "We use a completely different security set-up to Australia, which would make it extremely hard for someone to access data," a spokesperson told us. We're expecting a more detailed statement soon.
Update 2: And you can now find that statement here.
