Details of 2.7 million HSBC Turkey customers may have been compromised in a confirmed security breach that was spotted sometime last week by bank’s internal security team.
HSBC in a statement has said that they identified the security breach on its debit and credit card systems and stopped it, but the hackers may have siphoned off information comprising of card and linked account numbers, card holder names and expiry dates.
No Financial Risk
Despite the theft of 2.7 million customer records, HSBC is of the opinion that its customers are at no financial risk. The bank has stressed that criminals will not be able to carry out fraudulent transactions using the stolen information through either internet banking or telephone banking.
We are confident that there is no financial risk to our customers and there has been no evidence of any fraud or other suspicious activity arising from this incident.
In an FAQ [PDF] posted on its website, HSBC has further added that customer savings and current accounts are safe and none of details regarding such accounts were compromised. The information that criminals may have stolen is “is regularly shared by our customers with the 3rd parties when they make money transfers and EFT transactions”.
“No other information was compromised, including account numbers of term deposit accounts or other deposit accounts.”
No need of any action from customers
HSBC said that its customers need not take any action as a result of the security breach and has advised that users carry on their financial transactions as routine.
It also assured that the investigations are being carried out in collaboration with the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency of Turkey (BRSA) and other relevant authorities. The security breach isn’t a global one and according to the bank it is limited to HSBC Turkey.
