Amazon was hit with a data breach just days before Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the biggest shopping time of the year. The major data breach exposed names and email addresses of customers due to a technical error on their website.
Amazon emailed their customers Tuesday, November 20, 2018 stating the following:
“Our website inadvertently disclosed your email address or name and email address due to a technical error. The issue has been fixed. This is not a result of anything you have done, and there is no need for you to change your password or take any other action. The impacted customers have been contacted.”
Amazon has not reached out and provided any further details, like how many people were affected or if any information was stolen. An Amazon spokesman has only said the following this statement: “We have fixed the issue and informed customers who may have been impacted.” Their vague response to this breach has many customers and security experts concerned. The number of customers affected by this is still unknown. The gain e-commerce explained that the breach did not occur due to a hack, but rather a technical glitch led customer information to be exposed on their website.
When a data breach occurs to any organization big or small it is important to inform customers. Companies such, Amazon, located in Washington state, are required to inform the state attorney of incidents affecting 500 state residents and greater. It is unclear how European GDPR laws will affect Amazon’s response to the incident. For now, customers should abide by best security practices, and change their usernames and passwords for their accounts.
