Samsung website error exposes UK customer data

Samsung's UK website has suffered a data breach resulting in the leak of private information of around 150 customers, the company has confirmed.

Samsung said that the error exposed names, telephone numbers, postal and email addresses and previous orders, according to a statement seen by Reuters. Samsung emphasised that credit card information was not exposed.

An unnamed representative for the Korean tech giant told The Register on Tuesday that Samsung’s website was affected by a “technical error” that only targeted accounts of UK users, however the exact nature of the error is unclear.

“As soon as we became aware of the incident, we removed the ability to log in to the store on our website until the issue was fixed,” they said.

The UK's data watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office, has said that it has yet to receive a data breach report from Samsung, in an email to IT Pro. Companies are required by law to notify the ICO if a data breach is considered serious enough, and likely to infringe on the rights of data subjects.

“People have the right to expect that organisations will handle their personal information securely and responsibly," the authority said. "Where that doesn’t happen, people can come to the ICO and we will look into the details."

“When a data incident occurs, we would expect an organisation to consider whether it is appropriate to contact the people affected, and to consider whether there are steps that can be taken to protect them from any potential adverse effects."

Samsung said that they "will be contacting those affected by the issue with further details".

The UK website data breach only adds to the mounting concern among Samsung customers. The news follows last week’s incident in which some Samsung phone users received an unexpected Find My Mobile push notification, including those who had the location-tracking application disabled on their phones. Press representatives for the company did not respond to IT Pro’s request for comment.