Data of 200,000 Starbucks customers stolen from Singapore
The Starbucks chain in Singapore announced today, Friday, that its customer database was hacked via the Internet, while local media indicated that the breach affected the data of two hundred thousand people.
In an email to its customers, the Starbucks chain, which is licensed by the global Starbucks Group and owned by Hong Kong-based Maxims Ketterers, said it had "discovered ... unauthorized access" to customer details, including the name gender, date of birth, telephone number and residential address.
"The relevant authorities have been notified, and Starbucks Singapore is assisting them in this regard," said the email, seen by AFP.
The network said it learned of the breach on September 13, noting that no data associated with credit card numbers had been leaked because it did not originally store such information.
It urged customers to change their passwords.
A public relations agency representing Starbucks in Singapore told AFP it was "unable to reveal the number of customers affected."
However, the Straits Times reported that 200,000 customer data had been stolen and put up for sale in an online forum on September 10.
One copy of the database has already been sold for 3,500 Singapore dollars ($2,500), the newspaper added.
The Singapore Personal Data Protection Commission told AFP that it had received a notification of the incident, and that it had contacted Starbucks Singapore for more information.
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