Spammers steal email addresses from UK ISP
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by
zombieflesheater
zombieflesheater writes "Have you suffered from sudden increase in spam this week? If so, you could be a victim of an ISP data theft scandal, even if you're not a customer of the company in question.
UK ISP PlusNet has this week become the latest in a long line of companies to fail to adequately protect their customers' privacy. Confirming a major security breach in their webmail system, PlusNet's Networks Director Phil Web said:
Customers' address books have also been stolen, widening the impact to the friends, relatives and colleagues of those affected. PlusNet's webmail system is currently offline.""... we received reports that customers were receiving spam emails to addresses that had not previously received spam. Following investigation of these reports it became apparent that a third party had illegally acquired a list of email addresses. This list was obtained from our Webmail platform and includes accounts that customers have used to login to Webmail... [The] list is now being used to distribute spam email which continues to be sent to customers, and it is likely that this will continue."
