The international supermarket chain deactivated its online customer accounts as hackers posted account and personal details online.
by Don Reisinger
A Tesco virtual store in a South Korea subway station.
(Credit: Tesco)
Tesco, an international supermarket chain, has been forced to deactivate online customer accounts after hackers took aim at its systems.
The company confirmed to The Guardian on Friday that over 2,200 of its accounts were compromised. Interestingly, it’s believed that the hackers didn’t actually break into its systems, but instead used data collected from other hacks to see if they could get any hits. The affected accounts used the same username and password combination as those in previous hacks, allowing the hackers to break in.
Rather than snoop around, however, the hackers posted the compromised accounts online, giving both personal details and usernames and passwords.
The Tesco hacks comes just a couple of months after a massive data breach at Target left up to 110 million people with personal information open to hackers. Target is still investigating that breach and has closed down the gaps that allowed the hackers in. Still, it’s possible that the data leaked to the Web by those hackers is being used in a fashion similar to the way Tesco data was stolen.
According to Tesco, it has contacted the affected customers. The company has not said when the online accounts will be reactivated.
