Comcast Discloses Data Breach of Close To 36 Million Xfinity Customers [UPDATE]

In a notice on Monday, Xfinity notified customers of a 'data security incident' that resulted in the theft of customer information, including usernames, passwords, contact information, and more. The Verge reports: Xfinity traces the breach to a security vulnerability disclosed by cloud computing company Citrix, which began alerting customers of a flaw in software Xfinity and other companies use on October 10th. While Xfinity says it patched the security hole, it later uncovered suspicious activity on its internal systems 'that was concluded to be a result of this vulnerability.'

The hack resulted in the theft of customer usernames and hashed passwords, according to Xfinity's notice. Meanwhile, 'some customers' may have had their names, contact information, last four digits of their social security numbers, dates of birth, and / or secret questions and answers exposed. Xfinity has notified federal law enforcement about the incident and says 'data analysis is continuing.'

We still don't know how many users were affected by the breach. Xfinity will automatically ask customers to change their passwords the next time they log in to their accounts, and it's also encouraging users to turn on two-factor authentication. You can find the full notice, including contact information for the company's incident response team, on Xfinity's website (PDF). UPDATE 12/19/23: According to TechCrunch, almost 36 million Xfinity customers had their sensitive information accessed by hackers via a vulnerability known as 'CitrixBleed.' The vulnerability is 'found in Citrix networking devices often used by big corporations and has been under mass-exploitation by hackers since late August,' the report says. 'Citrix made patches available in early October, but many organizations did not patch in time. Hackers have used the CitrixBleed vulnerability to hack into big-name victims, including aerospace giant Boeing, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and international law firm Allen & Overy.'

'In a filing with Maine's attorney general, Comcast confirmed that almost 35.8 million customers are affected by the breach. Comcast's latest earnings report shows the company has more than 32 million broadband customers, suggesting this breach has impacted most, if not all Xfinity customers.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.