One of the UK’s biggest housing associations in the UK may have suffered a data leak.
The Home Group, which is based in Newcastle, has notified around 4000 customers that their personal details may have been stolen.
The BBC revealed that customer names, addresses and contact information had been compromised, but no financial data.
The charity provides rented homes to more than 116,000 people in 55,000 properties in England and Scotland.
The breach was identified by a third party cybersecurity expert and affected customers in properties in England, including those in the North East, North West and Yorkshire.
Breach
A spokesman for Home Group said that they acted as soon as they knew about the potential breach and had fixed the issue within 90 minutes.
And revealed that the company sent texts and emails to customers warning them of the data leak.
A spokesman said that whoever was responsible would have needed “expert cyber security knowledge”.
Chief financial officer, John Hudson, said: “We were made aware of a potential data vulnerability and immediately responded to and resolved the issue.
“We have a robust incident response protocol in place to deal with situations such as this, which meant the vulnerability was identified and fixed extremely quickly.
“We have contacted all customers affected and I want to reassure all our customers that their information is secure and that we follow strict guidelines and protocols when it comes to data sharing and cybersecurity.”
Security
A third party security consultant used by the company spotted the security flaw which may have compromised customers’ names, addresses, contact details and some direct debit frequencies.
The email to customers read: “We are letting you know because your details were included. This information does not include any of your bank or payment information.”
