Deutsche Bank and its subsidiary Postbank are affected by a data leak
(Photo: dpa)
Frankfurt Deutsche Bank has warned an unknown number of customers about data theft. Customers of Deutsche Bank and its subsidiary Postbank are affected. The gateway for the criminals was a data leak from an external service provider, as the institute announced on Friday.
“We were informed about a security incident at one of our external service providers, which we use for our account switching service,” said a spokesman for the institute. The cause of the security incident was identified and rectified by the service provider.
A letter to the affected customers mentions a software vulnerability that has been exploited. The “Bonner Generalanzeiger” had quoted from the letter and first reported on the incident.
The bank did not want to say which service provider caused the data leak. In addition to the company affected, according to the bank’s knowledge, “more than 100 companies in more than 40 countries are potentially affected”.
According to the institute, only those customers at Deutsche Bank and Postbank who used the account switching service of Deutsche Bank and Postbank in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2020 are affected by the data leak. Affected customers have been informed.
According to the “Bonner Generalanzeiger”, the perpetrators captured the first name, last name and IBAN account number of the customers. Deutsche Bank itself only announced that “a limited amount of personal data” was affected, “with which unauthorized persons cannot gain access to accounts”.
However, the name and account number are often sufficient for attempted fraud such as unauthorized direct debits. However, a customer can reclaim such debits from the bank up to 13 months later, as the money house announced. According to the bank, it has informed its customers about preventive precautionary measures and asked them to report suspicious bookings or unusual activities immediately.
Deutsche Bank emphasized that its own IT systems were never affected by the data leak. The security breach also has nothing to do with Postbank’s IT integration into Deutsche Bank, which was completed over the weekend.
Nevertheless, such an incident is unpleasant for every bank, as it has the potential to unsettle customers. Deutsche Bank therefore emphasized that it “immediately took measures to investigate the causes at our service provider in order to further adjust the security precautions”.
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