Porn, gore, and gambling habits aired in Virgin Media breach

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Virgin Media, the British telecom and Cable TV provider, has suffered a breach that allowed unauthorized access to customer data, some of which reportedly linked subscribers to porn, gambling, and extreme-violence content.

Virgin Media said in a post that the unauthorized access was to a marketing database that included "limited contact information such as names, home and email addresses, and phone numbers" for about 900,000 subscribers. The company went on to say that the breached database contained no passwords or financial information.

Despite Virgin Media characterizing the accessed data as limited contact information, the Financial Times and the BBC reported that the compromised database also included details of some 1,100 customers who had used an online form to request that specific websites be blocked or unblocked. Some of those sites offered content involving porn, gambling, and extreme-gore videos.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments