Singapore’s largest telco apologises after customers’ personal data stolen

Singapore’s largest mobile network operator Singtel says the personal data of some 129,000 of its customers was stolen by a group of hackers known as the Clop gang during a recent attack.

The company said the data includes names, addresses, phone numbers, identification numbers and dates of birth.

Bank details of 28 former Singtel employees were also stolen, as well as the credit card details of employees of a corporate customer which subscribes to Singtel’s mobile service, along with information from 23 companies.

“While this data theft was committed by unknown parties, I’m very sorry this has happened to our customers and apologise unreservedly to everyone impacted,” said Singtel CEO Yuen Kuan Moon.

“Data privacy is paramount, we have disappointed our stakeholders and not met the standards we have set for ourselves.”

According to The Straits Times, the Clop gang leaked over 11GB of data this week, putting some of it up for sale on the dark web in exchange for S$250,000 worth of bitcoin.

The latest data theft took place after hackers breached Accellion, a file transfer software used by Singtel, which was found to have been compromised last month.