- Freedom Mobile suffered a supply chain breach through a contractor’s account, exposing the customer’s personal information.
- Stolen data includes names, addresses, dates of birth, telephone numbers and account numbers; passwords and payment information are not affected
- The company warns of the risks of phishing; no evidence of data leak yet, investigation underway
Canadian telecommunications provider Freedom Mobile recently suffered an attack on its supply chain, in which it lost sensitive data on an as yet undisclosed number of customers.
In a data breach notification letter posted on its website earlier this week, Freedom said hackers had compromised a contractor’s account, through which they accessed the personal information of “a limited number” of its customers. The breach was spotted on October 23 and access was cut off.
However, by the time the compromised account was blocked and sanitized, the hackers managed to steal the full names, postal addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers (home and cell), as well as Freedom Mobile account numbers.
Phishing warning issued
Even though the telco emphasizes that payment information and passwords were not obtained in the attack, the threat actors stole enough information to launch very devastating phishing attacks.
For example, they might contact Freedom Mobile customers, posing as the telecommunications carrier, and threaten to terminate their accounts unless victims urgently log in (via a fake login page that steals credentials) or download a program (which is actually malware). Such an email, associated with personally identifiable information, could appear credible to recipients and could therefore result in a compromise.
As of press time, no malicious actors have claimed responsibility for the attack, and Freedom Mobile has found no evidence of data leaks in the wild. Users are nevertheless advised to be vigilant with regard to incoming messages, particularly those claiming to come from the telephone operator and carrying a sense of urgency. “Freedom Mobile will never ask you for personal information such as credit card numbers, banking information, passwords or PINs via email or SMS,” the notice reads.
Freedom Mobile was founded in 2008 as Wind Mobile and currently has over two million customers across Canada. It was acquired by Videotron in 2023, bringing the total number of subscribers to more than 3.5 million.
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