Second London Teen Arrested in TalkTalk Hack
British authorities have arrested a second teenage boy in relation to the hack affecting the largest UK-based telecom TalkTalk, in the past weeks weeks.
Last Monday, a 15-year-old boy from Northern Ireland was arrested for some form of alleged connection to the massive TalkTalk hack.
Now, just last Thursday, the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unity (MPCCU) arrested a second unnamed minor, a 16-year-old boy from Feltham, West London, under the suspicion of offenses to the Computer Misuse Act.
The latest TalkTalk hack was critical, possibly affecting some 4 million active U.K customers. Hackers who breached TalkTalk gained access to a trove of personally identifiable information including:
- Nearly 21,000 bank accounts
- Some 28,000 obscured Credit and Debit card numbers
- Less than 15,000 customers date of birth
- Names, email addresses and phone numbers of 1.2 million TalkTalk customers
TalkTalk officials did confess that “not all of the data was encrypted” that was accessed by hackers, putting personal details and bank information in plain sight of hackers.
However, “investigations so far show that the information that may have been accessed is not enough on its own to take money from your bank account,” company officials claimed.
It’s highly advised that all TalkTalk customers change their passwords immediately and monitor their bank statements over the next couple months. Hackers may begin making unauthorized charges later down the rode, possibly costing you thousands in fraud.
“Starting today, we are writing to all customers who have been affected by this to let them know what information has been accessed,” the company said speaking on the recent attack.
[Photo via Ewan McIntosh/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)]
