At Otto, Media Markt, Kaufland and other German online shops, personal data from hundreds of thousands of customers was freely accessible on the Internet as a result of a data leak.
- Due to a data gap, the personal data of customers of German online shops was unprotected on the Internet.
- According to the current state of knowledge, more than 700,000 people are affected by the data leak.
- The shops affected include Media Markt, Otto, Kaufland, Real, Check24 and many others.
Over a million data records from more than 700,000 customers of German online shops have been unprotected on the Internet for years. The data leak includes e-mail and postal addresses, telephone numbers and bank details that were collected by merchants to process purchases and may now be circulating on the dark web.
Like researching the Magazine plus minus proven, the data gap affects customers of the online shops of Media Markt, Otto, Kaufland, Check24, idealo and others. The culprit, however, is apparently an unnamed interface service provider that provides a marketplace function for the named dealers, among others.
Vulnerability in marketplace software?
The service provider closed the gap in the summer of 2021. For at least three years, however, the data was almost freely accessible. However, the affected customers were not informed. For one simple reason.
Because the platform operators deny the guilt and the obligation to provide information. They are not responsible under data protection law, it says in statements to Plusminus. The dealers on the marketplaces are the contractual partners of the customers and must therefore inform those affected.
An analysis by Swiss security experts has shown that the data sets are very specific. Phishing and identity theft cannot be ruled out if the information ends up on the dark web. You can find out whether you have been affected by identity theft and what to do in the linked instructions.
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