NatWest warns 600,000 over Three breach threat

NatWest Bank has taken matters into its own hands over the Three Mobile data breach by warning nearly 600,000 of its customers who are Three users to watch out for suspicious activity on their accounts following last week’s hack attack.
The bank is contacting those potentially affected by the incident after analysing which customers have direct debits with the mobile firm, despite Three insisting that no financial data has been put as risk.
However, with a slew of personal details, including name, phone number, phone type, date of birth, address, marital status, previous address, gender, employment status and email address being compromised, NatWest is clearly taking no chances.
These details alone are more than enough to perpetrate fraud.
A NatWest spokesman said: “Keeping our customers safe and secure is a major priority for us. Three announced last week that criminals had successfully accessed their customer database, so we have been reminding our customers who have a direct debit with Three that we will never ask for their PIN or full password and to be vigilant for suspicious emails, texts or phone calls.”
Earlier this week, Three confirmed that 133,827 users have been affected by the hack. The mobile giant has already been heavily criticised for its slow response to the breach, with many customers demanding to know why they only found out about the attack through media reports, despite a police operation which led to three men being arrested.
It was also revealed that the company could have faced a £1.8bn fine from Brussels if the breach had occurred under the EU General Data Protection Regulation, which is due to come into force in May 2018.