ADT is a popular home security service designed to monitor and protect against intruders. Ironically, the company itself has an intrusion problem, as hackers gained access to the company’s servers and stole information about ADT’s customers. The information was then posted on a popular hacker forum, causing uproar for the company and the people protected by its services.
In a statement to Tom’s Guide, an ADP spokesperson explained what happened and what kind of information was stolen:
“ADT has determined that one or more unauthorized individuals have gained access to certain ADT customer information. The company has taken immediate action: implementing our cybersecurity protocols, raising our alert levels, and initiating a forensic review of our systems.”
When asked what data was stolen, the representative said, “We can confirm that none of our customers’ home security systems were compromised and that no personally sensitive information, credit card details or banking information was accessed.”
This is good news for users, as the impact could be far more serious if hackers had access to credit card or banking information. Nevertheless, the company’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) suggests that customers’ email addresses, phone numbers and mailing addresses were stolen.
ADT noted in the filing that the number of affected customers represents “a small percentage of the company’s overall subscriber base” and that the company has “notified those customers it believes may be affected.”
The company did not disclose how many people were affected, but TechCrunch reported that a vendor on a cybercrime forum claimed to have around 30,000 ADT customer records as of July 31. This claim has yet to be verified, but we have reached out to ADT for further comment on the number of customers and will update you as we learn more.
If that number is correct, that would be a very small percentage of the company’s estimated 6 million customers across 200 locations in the U.S. Of course, that’s nothing to worry about for the 30,000 customers, but other customers can rest assured that their data is safe.
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