Nearly half a million subscribers to charity lotteries have been warned that their personal details may have been compromised by a data leak, writes DutchNews.nl.
The BankGiro Loterij, Postcode Loterij and VriendenLoterij took out newspaper adverts alerting players to a security vulnerability that could give hackers access to the names, addresses and e-mail addresses of around 450,000 customers. In around 900 cases the bank details and date of birth were also accessible.
The lotteries said an IT specialist found the leak in the record keeping systems of a company that was responsible for distributing post to prizewinners. The company had failed to delete winners’ details after eight days, as required by its contract. The contract has been terminated and the computer system taken offline.
The adverts said 600,000 people were affected by the leak, but the organisers later revised the figure after studying the leak in more detail. The lotteries said there was no indication that people’s details had been shared publicly. A hotline and email address have been set up to handle customers’ queries.
