A data breach at a former contractor firm has compromised the data of more than 200,000 Comcast subscribers.
Names, addresses, Social Security numbers and dates of birth are among the details that have been exposed.
A letter has now gone out to subscribers offering support, but comes only months after another huge data leak for the telecommunications service provider.
Comcast Offers Support for Data Breach Victims
The leak impacts subscribers whose data was held by a contractor called Financial Business and Consumer Solutions (FBCS).
Comcast actually stopped working with debt collection agency, FBCS, in 2020, according to Deadline. This means that the data is older but 237,703 subscribers are still impacted.
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The company is offering support services, including free identity theft protection services like credit monitoring options – for at least a year.
Subscribers affected have already been contacted. FCBS adds that there is currently no evidence that the exposed data has been misused.
When Did the Comcast Data Breach Take Place?
Comcast was made aware of the data breach last March but was told by FBCS that its customers’ data was not impacted. But by July, FBCS came back to the telecoms company with its hands up and admitted it had now found that Comcast’s data had been exposed.
At this point, FBCS got the FBI involved. Comcast adds in its letter to subscribers that the breach “occurred entirely at FBCS and not at Xfinity or on Comcast systems” and “the compromised information about you [subscribers] dates from around 2021.”
How to Know if You’ve Been Affected
The number of customers affected by the leak is a small portion of Comcast’s total customers, although that’s small comfort to those who have had their data leaked.
If you have been unlucky enough to be caught up in the breach, Comcast should have already reached out to you. However, if you have any reason to suspect that your data may have been compromised, and haven’t heard anything, then we suggest contacting the company directly.
Comcast is offering services that will allow impacted subscribers to keep an eye out for any kind of fraud that could be related to this leak.
The company is also urging all customers to set up two-step verification, and “remain alert for unusual or suspicious emails or telephone calls”.
Comcast’s Earlier Data Breach
This latest breach is dwarfed by December’s data leak, which impacted more than 35 million Xfinity customers.
The Xfinity brand is owned by Comcast Cable Communications and was hit when hackers targeted cloud computing provider, Citrix. Two class lawsuits have followed and investigations continue.
However, while millions have been affected by Comcast’s earlier breach, it’s a drop in the ocean to the total number of victims of data breaches that companies have seen in 2023 and 2024.
