Charter Communications Data Breach Could Impact Nearly 5 Million

Summary

The ShinyHunters extortion group has published over 42 million records allegedly stolen from Charter Communications, though analysis suggests 4.9 million unique individuals are affected. The leaked data includes customer names, addresses, phone numbers, and employee account information, but Charter disputes claims that sensitive customer proprietary network information (CPNI) was compromised. ShinyHunters, known for voice phishing attacks and ransomware extortion, published the data on its Tor-based leak site after Charter apparently declined to pay ransom.

Full text

The notorious ShinyHunters extortion group has published data allegedly stolen from the telecoms services provider Charter Communications. ShinyHunters is known for engaging in voice phishing attacks to gain access to victim organizations’ networks and rapidly exfiltrate data that it then threatens to leak online unless a ransom is paid. The group lists its victims on a Tor-based leak site, and the data it claims to have been stolen from Charter was made available for download on that portal on Thursday, which suggests that the company did not pay a ransom to prevent its publication. According to ShinyHunters’ post, the stolen data includes over 42 million customer records, along with customer proprietary network information (CPNI). The number of potentially affected individuals, however, appears to be only 4.9 million, data breach notification website HaveIBeenPwned says. Its analysis of the data revealed 4.9 million unique email addresses, along with names, addresses, and phone numbers. The data contains 85,000 records associated with employee accounts, each of which includes a job title.Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading. Over the past year, ShinyHunters has claimed numerous high-profile data breaches, mainly involving Salesforce customers. Some of these include Canvas, CarGurus, Carnival, Panera Bread, 7-Eleven, and Grafana. One of the largest broadband providers in the US, Charter has over 30 million residential and business customers. “We are aware of the situation, following our security protocols, and are working with appropriate authorities. Only sales tools used to manage current, past, and prospective business customers were impacted; no CPNI or sensitive PI was released by the threat actor,” a Charter spokesperson said, responding to a SecurityWeek inquiry. Related: Oncology Institute Discloses Data Breach Related: 266,000 Affected by Data Breach at Radiology Associates of Richmond Related: DocketWise Data Breach Impacts 143,000 Related:American Lending Center Data Breach Affects 123,000 Individuals Written By Ionut Arghire Ionut Arghire is an international correspondent for SecurityWeek. Daily Briefing Newsletter Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing for the latest cybersecurity threats, trends, and expert insights. 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