25,000 individuals affected in BBC Pension Scheme data breach

Personal information of current and former BBC employees has been exposed in a data breach that affected the broadcaster’s in-house pension scheme.

More than 25,000 individuals have been affected, according to The Guardian.

What data was exposed?

“On the 21 May, the BBC’s information security team alerted us to a data security incident, in which some files containing personal information of BBC Pension Scheme members records were copied from a cloud-based data storage service used by our administration team,” the BBC Pension and Benefits Centre said.

“The files include personal details including names, National Insurance numbers, dates of birth, sex and home addresses of some pension scheme members. The information did not contain any bank details, financial information, usernames or passwords.”

The pension scheme’s website, member portal (myPension Online) and existence checking service (myPensionID) have not been affected.

So far, there’s no indication that the stolen information has been misused.

“The information can no longer be accessed from the original source, and we have not yet seen any evidence of the information being available elsewhere. We are continuing to monitor this closely,” they said.

Affected individuals advised to be careful

Affected members have been or will be contacted either via email or physical letter, and they’ve been advised to be on the lookout for unexpected letters, phone calls, texts or emails, etc. that ask them to visit a web page or download attachments.

“Should someone attempt to impersonate you to attempt access to your accounts, or to create a new account, you may see indications such as an unexpected text message or email about activity around your account/login, or asking you to confirm it is you who is about to attempt an action. If you are unsure, do not approve any request and contact the service or organisation, and ask for their fraud department,” the BBC Pension Scheme advised.

Affected members have been given 24 months of free access to a credit and web monitoring service.

The Scheme’s operations haven’t been affected by the incident. Though the BBC has not explained how the data grab was made possible, an internet-exposed and unsecured (misconfigured) data bucket or file share currently seems like the most likely scenario.