Wonga and GameStop Investigate Potential Data Breaches

It was only a matter of time until a new data breach would affect tens of thousands of consumers. Wonga, a payday loan firm, saw its database records affected by a data breach affected as many as 245,000 customers. This news comes on the heels of a major potential GameStop data breach, which saw credit card information of US consumers getting stolen.

Data Breaches Remain A Big Problem

It is impossible to deny the threat posed by data breaches. Whether it is consumer information or payment details getting exposed, companies are failing to protect sensitive data from prying eyes. Earlier today, news broke about UK-based Wonga suffering from a massive data breach which could affect up to 270,000 consumers in Poland and the UK.

For the time being, it remains unclear how may behind this attack against the payday loan firm. The company has issued a warning to all clients about an “illegal and unauthorized access to limited personal data”. No one knows for sure which types of data have been affected by this breach. Wonga stores personal information, partial bank numbers or bank account numbers in their database. It does not appear as if user passwords have been compromised during the attack, although clients are still advised to update their password just to be safe.

We do know Wonga is actively collaborating with local law enforcement agencies to find the people responsible for the data breach. Further details are expected to be revealed over the coming weeks. Most people are wondering how this breach was made possible in the first place, yet the company has not provided specific details regarding the attack itself.

What is rather troublesome is how this is the second major data breach to be reported within the past seven days. Late last week, it became evident GameStop suffering from a similar incident. To be more specific, the parent company is investigating reports of credit cards being sued by unauthorized third parties. It is unclear whether or not this is due to GameStop being breached, or consumer card details leaking as a result of a different incident.

To be more specific, the initial reports seem to indicate payment card data used on the GameStop.com platform has been sold on the darknet. Such reports always need to be taken seriously, as it could hint at a major problem related to the online Gamestop platform. If a data breach were to be discovered, it will be up to the parent company to take the appropriate course of action and ensure similar incidents cannot occur again.

Moreover, the reports seemingly indicate GameStop.com may have been compromised between September 2016 and early February of 2017. For the time being, the investigation is still ongoing, and an update is expected to be released in the coming weeks. GameStop.com is a very popular online platform among gamers, which also makes it an attractive target for cybercriminals.

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