Samsung Data Breach
In September 2022, Samsung announced that some smart device users may have had their information stolen or exposed in a data breach. The company has said that no financial data, credit card numbers or social security identification has been exposed.
Samsung has not disclosed how many people or what devices may have been affected but the customer base of the company is estimated in the hundreds of millions. Even a small data breach may have exposed hundreds of thousands of accounts.
Data that Samsung has said may have been exposed includes:
- Name
- Address
- Contact information
- Demographic information
- Dates of birth
- Product registration information
- Geolocation data
- Personal interest data
- Browsing and viewing content
- Third party shared information
Samsung Did Not Disclose Breach for Weeks
Samsung has said that hackers stole the data in “late July 2022” but did not discover the exposure until August 4, 2022. The data breach was not announced until a month later on September 2, 2022. The announcement was issued near the close of business on a Friday before a holiday weekend.
This is the second breach of Samsung security that has occurred in 2022, the first was an access of internal technical documents and source code and reportedly did not affect consumers. It is unknown whether the latest data breach is a continuing issue from the earlier hacking of technical information involving the Galaxy product line.
Potential Risks of Samsung Data Breach
People who are victims of a data breach often spend considerable time and money to minimize or mitigate damage. This may include time spent researching, monitoring, and notifying account holders, purchasing credit monitoring or other services. In a worst-case scenario, consumers must undertake lengthy and complicated processes to recover from identity theft, repair credit and mitigate financial consequences.
As the data accessed in the Samsung breach may have included third-party information, consumers may experience increased spam emails, text messages and phone calls. These attempted contacts may be phishing attempts to trick users into revealing additional information, increasing the chance of monetary or identity theft.
Those who experienced fraud due to the Samsung data breach may be eligible for compensation.