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Dutch phone company Odido has confirmed a data breach affected millions of its customers.<\/p>\n
The company said in a statement<\/a> Thursday that unidentified hackers gained access to its customer contact system and covertly downloaded reams of customer information. A spokesperson for Odido told local Dutch media<\/a> that the breach affects more than 6.2 million customers, or about a third of the country\u2019s population.<\/p>\n The stolen data includes customer names, phone numbers, postal and email addresses, dates of birth, bank account numbers (IBAN), and details of customers\u2019 government-issued IDs, such as passport or driver\u2019s license numbers and dates of validity.<\/p>\n The company said former customers who had service within the past two years may also be affected.<\/p>\n Odido said the data did not include customer call records, location data, billing information, or image scans of government IDs. The data does not affect business customers, the company said.<\/p>\n The breach affects customers of both Odido and its subsidiary Ben NL<\/a>. Both companies said that their phone, internet, and television operations were unaffected by the breach.<\/p>\n This is the latest in a series of data thefts targeting phone and telecommunication giants in recent years, as governments and financially motivated hackers continue to seek highly confidential information that telcos have on their customers.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, the Singaporean government confirmed<\/a> that a China-related hacking group had previously broken into four of the country\u2019s top phone giants as part of a surveillance operation, but did not access customers\u2019 personal information.<\/p>\n All the while, hackers associated with the China-backed threat group known as Salt Typhoon have hacked hundreds of phone companies around the world, including in Canada<\/a>, Norway<\/a>, the United Kingdom<\/a>, and the United States<\/a>, as part of an ongoing espionage campaign aimed at spying on senior government officials and diplomats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n