The company informed its patrons by sending them a notice concerning a data breach that the company has become a victim of. AnyVan later disclosed that they discovered this incident on the 31st of December 2020 and they also mentioned the reason as to, “why they're being informed so late?”
AnyVan in regards to the aforementioned incident stated that “This leaking of data came to our attention on the 31st December, but we understand the incident itself occurred at the end of September. As soon as the incident came to our attention, our specialist IT team investigated it and have since taken the following remedial action: all passwords have been changed."
According to the notice and statements given by the company, patrons' names, email and a cryptographic hash of their passwords have been accessed and probably displayed on the dark web by the actors. Seemingly, no other sensitive information was compromised. Further, they added that an investigation of the incident continues. however, all this came only after the actors had ample time to exploit user’s data and information. The estimate reflects that around 4.1 million users are being affected due to this data breach. AnyVan never even reached out to the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office), which was an important step as its users' confidential data was compromised.
As a precautionary measure, the company advised its patrons to update their password and other personal details for the accounts, they use on AnyVan. They alarmed them not to share unwittingly any other piece of information or personal detail to anyone. Moreover, the company apologized for this data breach of the personal information suffered by its users and said that they are very sorry for the inconvenience caused.
