ADSL Firm ACCA Networks Admits Customer Data Leak
Tokyo, March 25 (Jiji Press)–ACCA Networks Co. said Thursday that some of its data on 1.4 million current and former subscribers to its high-speed Internet service have been leaked.
ACCA Networks is a Tokyo-based affiliate of NTT Communications Corp., the long-distance telecommunications unit of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. . It provides high-speed Internet services with asymmetric digital subscriber line technology to individual and corporate customers.
The company said it has confirmed leaked data on 201 customers, including names, addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses.
However, the data did not include credit information, such as credit card numbers, the company said.
ACCA Networks said it confirmed the authenticity of the data on Tuesday, following the disclosure of a printed list of the 201 customers by an outside source.
The company has yet to confirm the exact number of customers whose data were leaked. According to media reports, the leak could include the data of some 300,000 customers.
The incident is believed to have taken place between late March and early May last year, company officials said.
ACCA Networks plans to implement measures by April 4 to prevent the recurrence of such an incident. The measures will include reducing the number of employees with access to customer data to 62 and abolishing common access identification.
Currently, a total of 466 people, including temporary staff, can access the company’s customer data.
ACCA Vice President Hidehiko Yuzaki said at a press conference the same day that the leak was probably from within the company as the company has already taken measures against unauthorized access from outside.
The incident comes after Softbank Corp. group’s Yahoo BB broadband Internet connection service suffered a major customer data leak in February.
Following a string of such incidents, the government has urged the telecommunications and broadcasting industry to beef up security of personal information data.END