Tens of thousands of customers’ personal information was exposed on Acer Inc’s (宏碁) North American online store for about a year due to a security breach, the company confirmed yesterday.
“Acer’s subsidiary, Acer America Corp, has taken immediate steps to resolve this security issue upon identifying it and it is being assisted by outside cybersecurity experts,” the Sijhih District (汐止), New Taipei City-based PC maker said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The filing said that only the North American online store was affected by the incident and that there were no signs that its online platform in other regions, such as Europe, had been compromised.
Photo: David Chang, EPA
Acer said the incident has no immediate negative impact on its operations or finances.
The filing came after several foreign media outlets reported that the accounts of customers who made purchases on Acer’s North American online store between May 12 last year and April 28 were accessed by an unauthorized third party.
The data breach affected 34,500 customers based in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico, according to a report by ZDNet, which Acer America later confirmed to PCWorld.
According to PCWorld, Acer America said the information was exposed because the company “inadvertently stored the data in an unsecured format,” which hackers were able to access.
Acer said that information, such as names, addresses and credit card numbers, including expiration dates and three-digit security codes, had been compromised.
It said it does not collect US customers’ Social Security numbers and had not found evidence that passwords or login credentials were stolen.
Acer said it has reported the issue to its credit card payment processer and suggested that customers file a police report if they suspect they have been victims of identity theft or fraud. It added that it was cooperating fully with US law enforcement authorities over the issue.
Acer values its customers’ trust in the company and regrets this incident, the company said, adding that it is working on improving its cybersecurity.
The company in March formed an information security service alliance with IBM Corp, financial software company Syspower (奇唯科技) and other local companies.
The alliance aims to utilize IBM’s X-Force security research and development to improve defense against cybersecurity threats for enterprises in Taiwan, IBM said.
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