TV Licensing is warning customers that personal data including bank account details may have been 'affected' by weak spots in its security spotted by a Norfolk marketer.
The company said transactions carried out on the site over a recent seven-day period were 'not as secure as they should have been' – but added there was 'no evidence' the website had been subject to a cyber attack or that customer details had been compromised.
It comes a week after Norfolk digital marketing expert Mark Cook got into a Twitter spat with the organisation over its use of HTTP web pages (rather than the secure HTTPS) to take customer details.
Following the discussion with Mr Cook, a director at Candour in Norwich, the website was taken down for 'planned maintenance'.
TV Licensing said the security weakness affected transactions made between Wednesday, August 29 and around 3.20pm on Wednesday, September 5.
A statement on the company's website said it had taken the site down after it was alerted to an issue with its security following a 'technical update'.
It stressed that the issue did not affect credit or debit card details but may have affected personal information such as names, addresses, emails and bank account sort codes and account numbers.
It added: 'We believe the risk of anyone else having seen information sent through to our website during that period is extremely low but, because we take a very cautious approach, we want to tell our customers what happened and recommend precautions customers can take to protect themselves.'
What to do if you think your data was affected
TV Licensing said it is 'urgently' contacting all customers who it believes submitted their bank details during the affected period.
As a precaution, it said customers who made transactions in the period should check their bank account to ensure there are no transactions which have not been authorised and check that direct debits haven't been amended in any way.
If any suspicious activity is detected customers should contact their bank or building society.
The company says it will compensate those who suffered financially from the incident.
Any further questions should be directed to TV Licensing on 0300 790 6024.
Customers can also check if communications from TV Licensing are genuine on the FAQs section of the TV Licensing website.
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