Internet Service Giant Says 237,703 Customers’ Social Security Numbers Exposed in Major Data Breach

One of the largest internet service providers in the US says hundreds of thousands of customers’ social security numbers have been exposed.

A new data breach notice at the Office of the Maine Attorney General shows a total of 237,703 customers at Comcast have had their names, addresses, social security numbers and birthdates exposed.

In a letter to affected customers, Comcast says the breach happened at Financial Business and Consumer Solutions (FBCS), a third-party service provider that Comcast had used for collections services.

“FBCS provided the following information: ‘From February 14 and February 26, 2024, an unauthorized party gained access to FBCS’s computer network and some of its computers. During this time, the unauthorized party downloaded data from FBCS systems and encrypted some systems as part of a ransomware attack…

FBCS discovered that the files downloaded by the unauthorized party contained personal information, including personal information about you.'”

FBCS publicly confirmed it had been hit with a data breach back in February, and says more than four million people are affected.

This is the second major breach to his Comcast customers in less than a year.

In December of 2023, Comcast-owned Xfinity revealed that personal data of nearly all 35 million of the internet provider’s customers had been exposed, including account usernames, passwords, partial social security numbers and answers to their security questions.

Comcast said that breach was triggered by a vulnerability in software from the cloud computing company Citrix.

Generated Image: Midjourney