Charter Communications bought Time Warner Cable last year, and the two organizations currently work under the Spectrum brand name. Previous to its purchase, Time Warner was the second-largest cable firm in the U.S. and worked in 29 states.
Some of the seized records date back to 2010, but it’s unclear precisely how many people were affected by the incident. Though four million documents were likely breached, that doesn’t mean the data of four million people is at risk.
Some of the endangered info included duplicate material, but an unrevealed number of Time Warner subscribers’ email addresses, MAC addresses, financial transaction info, usernames and device serial numbers were fully available online.
The billing numbers, phone numbers and common contact info for hundreds of thousands of Time Warner users were further left on unsecured servers.
The servers also filed corporate emails, internal company documents, and database dumps.
“A vendor has informed us that certain non-financial data of legacy Time Warner Cable consumers who used the My TWC app displayed potentially visible by external sources,” Charter told the Hollywood Reporter on Friday. “Upon hearing, the data was removed immediately by the vendor, and we are currently reviewing this incident with them. There is no evidence that any Charter systems were affected. As a general security measure, we support customers who used the My TWC app to modify their user names and passwords.”
Online security is a thriving concern – unsecured data and illegal breaches will cost companies a total of $8 trillion over the next five years, according to a global release from U.K-based market intelligence firm Juniper Research.
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