Impact of the Virgin Media data breach

The potential impact of the Virgin Media data breach cannot be understated. This was a serious breach which is why we’ve launched our legal action for justice.

Victims can be entitled to make a claim for compensation with us on a No Win, No Fee basis. If you have received confirmation that you are affected by the breach, you should be eligible to join the action for justice.

Here’s some more information about the potential impact on victims and what people can do about it.

The potential impact of the Virgin Media data breach

The impact of the Virgin Media data breach could be severe for those whose data has been exposed in the leak. With some 900,000 victims of the incident, there’s a lot of information that has been left exposed for a prolonged period of time between April 2019 and February 2020.

We know that at least one unknown third-party accessed the information during the breach period. We don’t know who it was or what they intend to do with the data, if anything, nor do we know if they have any malicious intentions. One bad situation could be if the data is sold on the dark web for criminals and fraudsters to try and make use of.

Exposed data could be abused in a number of ways. An easy example is based on what happened to some of the victims of the 2015 TalkTalk data hack, which is one of the over 35 data actions we’ve been involved with. Fraudsters used information exposed in that breach to contact victims and pretend to be TalkTalk representatives contacting them to resolve various real issues. Unfortunately, some victims were duped into handing over thousands of pounds in cash and providing access to computers with online bank accounts accessible.

Serious scams

There has reportedly been a rise in so-called “sextortion scams” during the coronavirus pandemic. This is where fraudsters contact people to try and extort money out of them, with police reporting increased numbers of late in both Nottinghamshire and Hertfordshire.

Scammers will often claim that they have video evidence of the victim on explicit websites. This may include footage of both their browser on the website and them through a webcam. To be as convincing as possible, they will often include a compromised password from an account, with some passwords dating back to breaches from years ago. They can demand thousands of pounds on the threat of releasing the footage to their contacts which they claim to have possession of.

With personal details exposed in the Virgin Media data breach, and with over one thousand customers having details exposed that could link them to explicit websites already, the threat is real. This is why victims of the cybersecurity breach must be careful and why the impact of the Virgin Media data breach should never be underestimated.

Precautions to take

Some simple precautions to take to try and limit the potential impact of the Virgin Media data breach could be:

• Change your password for any Virgin linked accounts, and for any other accounts you use the same login credentials for. Going forward, use strong and unique passwords for different accounts;
• Ignore any calls or emails that appear to be from Virgin where they are asking for information or linking you to websites to enter information. If in doubt at all, don’t take any inbound contact further and find a trusted phone number or address on an official website to contact them yourself. When it comes to “sextortion” scams, the police have advised people to not respond and to contact Action Fraud;
• Check if any of your other accounts have been compromised using tools such as the website “haveibeenpwned”.

To make a claim for compensation as a victim of the Virgin Media data breach on a No Win, No Fee basis, head over to the main part of the website to get started today.

The content of this post/page was considered accurate at the time of the original posting and/or at the time of any posted revision. The content of this page may, therefore, be out of date. The information contained within this page does not constitute legal advice. Any reliance you place on the information contained within this page is done so at your own risk.