Vodafone Customer Database Breached

beaverdownunder writes "Vodafone has confirmed it believes its secure customer database has been breached by an employee or dealer who has shared the access password, revealing the personal details of millions of customers... According to Fairfax newspapers, 'criminal groups are paying for the private information of some customers including home addresses and credit card details.'"

Re:Valuable goods will be stolen

[arkhan_jg]

Tell that to the people that have had their car number plate cloned for a similar model car, and end up getting speeding tickets and congestion charges for driving in London, despite not doing anything of the sort. And good luck getting the police to believe that's not your car and number plate in the photos.

The problem is not the openess (or not) of people's data. It's that it's trivially abused as personal data is often used as some form of ID, not least by banks, credit agencies, police and shops.

Re:Prepaid SIMs

[Kalriath]

Bollocks, don't you go speaking for NZ. You can just buy a voucher - with cash - and use the code printed on it to top up.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[Bert64]

Considering that as a vodafone customer you can travel to 30 countries and use a network owned by the same company, the roaming rates are pretty extortionate when you actually try to do so.

Re:Prepaid SIMs

[Zalchiah]

If you have placed a SIM card in a phone, and turned that phone on, your phone company has your phone model. Your IMEI is recorded when your handset connects to your nearest Cell tower, and is recorded with every call or txt you make. Also, Siebel (the system that both Vodafone and Telstra use in Australia) automatically records this IMEI against your account. With an IMEI, it is extremely easy to find out phone model. For free. Online. http://www.numberingplans.com/?page=analysis [numberingplans.com] (Sometimes it asks for a login, sometimes it doesn't. A login is free to create.)

Re:Valuable goods will be stolen

[Darshu]

On the contrary. ID is not permitted to be required. See right here:

http://www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/contactus/merchantviolations.html [mastercard.com]

[On an OT note, since when does Slashdot require me to wait for an extraordinarily long period of time when I am just trying to reply with some simple information]