In a bizarre turn of events, Samsung confessed and confirmed that the rumors around a data breach were true. The data breach has affected the personal information of Samsung’s customers, and information is majorly compromised.
As per the notice released by Samsung, the breach occurred at the end of July 2022. It happened when an “unauthorized third party acquired information, ” which affected the tech giant’s US systems. Samsung was not aware of this scenario up until August 4th, when it realized that data had been accessed through hackers.
What was stolen?
Customer information that was personal in terms of knowledge was stolen. For example, their names, contact numbers, product registration information, date of birth, etc. However, credit card numbers and Social Security numbers remained safe at the hands of unknown hackers.
Samsung released a statement that ensured that they are making their customers aware of the issue, and each customer may not be facing the same kind of breach, and the information taken about them may differ. Samsung spokesperson Chris Langlois has revealed that information of customers used for advertising and marketing is used. However, it did not inform the kinds of data usage. He did not state the number of customers who have been the victims of this breach, nor was there any plausible explanation for why this breach notification was announced a month later. The notification came around a national holiday in the USA called Labor Day, which means an unreasonable amount of time had passed between the actual incident and the notification of the incident.
“Even though the investigation is ongoing, we wanted to notify our customers to make them aware of this matter because we understand how important their privacy is,” said Samsung Spokesperson.
What steps is Samsung taking to tackle the matter?
Samsung is cooperating with all legal agencies and ensuring that it follows related and appropriate legal methods to get to the root of this. It has assured its customers that it is taking full responsibility and making its systems safer by bringing in a cybersecurity firm yet to be named. Continuous events have made Samsung try to find better solutions for cyber-related security concerns, which are on the rise lately.
Is this the first time Samsung has faced a data breach?
This is not the first time that the company has been a victim of hacking. Earlier this year, Samsung faced a leak of 200 gigabytes of confidential data. The algorithms for biometric unlock operations and also source code for various technologies were attained by hackers. The Lapsus$ hacking group took responsibility for it which had also earlier compromised the data of T-Mobile, Nvidia, and Microsoft. Just months later, Samsung is again tackling the same problem, which may be an obstacle they have to overcome this time with more efforts put into their security systems.
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