Carphone Warehouse, a British mobile phone retailer, with
over 2,400 stores across Europe, has confirmed that its systems had been attacked
by hackers during which personal details, which include bank
details, addresses, names and dates of birth, of its 2.4 million customers had
been compromised.
According to a news report published in The Independent,
as per a statement from the firm the IT network of one of the firm’s online
divisions, was the victim of a “sophisticated cyber-attack” within the last two
weeks.
The company also said that 90,000 customers’ credit card
details may have been accessed by the hackers.
After the attack, the company sent emails to the customers who
may be affected by the cyber-attack asking them to their bank and check for any
suspicious activity on their account.
"We take the security of customer data extremely seriously,
and we are very sorry that people have been affected by this attack on our
systems," Sebastian James, group chief executive of Dixons Carphone, said
in a statement.
He added, “We are, of course, informing anyone that may have
been affected, and have put in place additional security measures"
The news report said that the Carphone Warehouse, which is
owned by Dixons Carphone following a £3.7bn merger, also incorporated Currys
and PC World, but the parent firm said that majority of Carphone Warehouse data
and that of Currys and PC World is held on separate systems and was not
compromised during the attack.