Comcast warns that hackers stole the personal data of more than 230,000 customers in a ransomware attack against a third-party debt collection company, according to a court filing. The attackers targeted a Pennsylvania-based debt collection company called Financial Business Consumer Solutions (FBCS).
The attack occurred in February, but Comcast claims FBCS initially said no customer data was involved in the incident. FBCS changed its tune by July, when it notified Comcast that customer information had been compromised, TechCrunch reported.
Overall, 237,703 subscribers were affected by this breach. The attackers went to great lengths to collect names, addresses, social security numbers, dates of birth, Comcast account numbers, and ID numbers. Comcast said the stolen data belonged to customers who signed up with the company “in or around 2021.” The company also said it has stopped using FBCS for debt collection purposes.
“Between February 14 and February 26, 2024, an unauthorized person gained access to the FBCS computer network and some of its computers,” the filing states. “During this time, an unauthorized party downloaded data from FBCS systems and encrypted some systems as part of a ransomware attack.”
No group claims credit for this incident. FBCS only refers to attackers as “cheating actors.” Debt collection companies have been hit hard by this attack, and Comcast customers are just one group of victims. The company said more than 4 million people were affected and the cybercriminals accessed medical billing and health insurance information in addition to standard identification data.
To this end, medical debt purchasing company CF Medical admitted that 600,000 of its customers were involved in the breach. Trust Bank also acknowledged that it was affected by the attack.
It is noteworthy that this case primarily affects debtors, exposing them to potential fraud. Chris Hauk, a consumer privacy advocate at Pixel Privacy, told Engadget that “a bad actor with access to this information could use it to impersonate a debt relief agency, and many people They may turn to this institution as a way out of their situation. The debtors involved may be defrauded of large sums of money that they cannot afford.”
In other words, be on the lookout for suspicious phone calls, emails, and text messages. This is good advice for everyone, not just debtors who had data stored in FBCS. After all, it was revealed earlier this year that hackers had stolen more than 2.7 billion records from American consumers, likely including data about everyone living in the country. You can
