Thousands of Comcast Customer Passwords Posted Online
UPDATED: About 8,000 user names and passwords belonging to Comcast customers had been sitting, unprotected, on a public Web site for the last two months, according to a New York Times report today.
The newspaper was alerted to the breach by a professor who was searching for information about himself was online — and found his own e-mail address on the list, posted on document-sharing site Scribd.
[UPDATE: Comcast says an analysis of the list showed only 700 of the user names and passwords appear to be authentic, and that the company is reaching out to the affected customers to inform them about how to protect their accounts.]
Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury told the Times that it appeared the list did not originate from the company, as it contained duplicated data and lacked information like account numbers. “We have no reason to believe this came from Comcast. It looks like a phishing or related type of scheme,” she said.
Comcast was “freezing” the e-mail accounts of the customers on the list and contacting them to educate them about using safe passwords, Khoury said.
Charile at Comcast commented:
Todd - Based on an initial analysis of the document, we have identified about 700 of these accounts that appear to be real. The rest of the list is duplicative or inaccurate information. It was likely generated as the result of a phishing scam or some kind of malware that affected customer\’s computers. Best thing anyone can do is make sure they have up to date security software running on their PCs and remain vigilant and suspicious about ever sharing your user name and password with anyone.
