Hacked email

[pwaterhouse]

Hi. This is for an admin please. My email address. Has been hacked. I can log into virgin mail to reset my password. I actually want to just delete the account. I e already reset my phone. Please email to [MOD EDIT: Personal details]

[Carley_S]

Hi @pwaterhouse 

Welcome back to the community forums

Sorry to hear that your email was hacked. Can you confirm if the email is linked to an active broadband service and used a the primary email for the online account or is this an older email account? 

[pwaterhouse]

Hi, I don't have virgin broadband anymore. I was still using it but I have now changed to another email. It is a very old email address.....an ntlworld one if your old enough to remember.

[Andrew-G · Accepted solution]

You should report this to the Information Commissioner's Office.  If VM have kept alive an email account past the 90 days post-closure, and you were not using it, then that's processing your data without consent.  There's a second GDPR issue, that there's been hundreds of reports of hacked email accounts lately - clearly there's been a systemic failure of security across VM's email system that has enabled these hacks.  And despite knowing there's a problem, VM have failed to recognise this as a breach and notify the ICO and affected customers within 72 hours, another GDPR failure. 

Three serious breaches of GDPR, and still the company are doing the three wise monkeys routine - what a shameful outfit.

[pwaterhouse]

I don't claim to understand your answer. But agree with virgin media being a company I do not want to deal with. They are painfully slow to deal with any problems that came up.

I no longer have broadband or TV with virgin media but for other reasons 

[pwaterhouse]

Hi. 

It's a good job it's not urgent isn't it. After all it's just a security breach! 

Please tell me what action your taking?

[Daniel_Et]

Hi @pwaterhouse 👋 Thank you for your response and apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

In order to look into this for you further, we will need to send you a private message on here. Look out for the purple envelope in the top right-hand corner.

Regards,
Daniel

[Weberweber]

I share your concerns.

It would appear from the number of reported VM / email hacks that there has been a serious breach of VM security, yet there is no sense of urgency around getting this resolved - just bland advice about carrying out a virus scan and changing passwords.  I reported my issue yesterday and have been informed that it has been passed to the IT team for investigation, but no more specific advice has been forthcoming.

As a Virgin Media customer affected by this issue, I want to know how hackers got access to my login and password, whether there are ongoing risks, and whether there is any more action I should be taking in the meantime.