Comcast says hackers stole data of close to 36 million Xfinity customers

Remarkableriots · December 20, 2023

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Comcast says hackers stole data of close to 36 million Xfinity customers | TechCrunch

TECHCRUNCH.COM

Hackers exploited a known but unpatched flaw, allowing hackers access to the sensitive information of almost 36 million Comcast customers.

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This vulnerability, known as “CitrixBleed,” is found in Citrix networking devices often used by big corporations and has been under mass-exploitation by hackers since late August. Citrix made patches available in early October, but many organizations did not patch in time. Hackers have used the CitrixBleed vulnerability to hack into big-name victims, including aerospace giant Boeing, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and international law firm Allen & Overy.

Xfinity, Comcast’s cable television and internet division, became the latest CitrixBleed victim, the company confirmed in a notice to customers on Monday.

The U.S. telecom giant said that hackers exploiting the CitrixBleed vulnerability had access to its internal systems between October 16 and October 19, but that the company did not detect the “malicious activity” until October 25.

By November 16, Xfinity determined that “information was likely acquired” by the hackers, and in December, the company concluded that this included customer data, including usernames and “hashed” passwords, which are scrambled and stored in a way that makes them unreadable to humans. It’s not immediately clear how the passwords were scrambled or using which algorithm, as some weaker hashing algorithms can be cracked.

The company says for an unspecified number of customers, hackers may have also accessed names, contact information, dates of birth, the last four digits of Social Security numbers and their secret questions and answers.