Tech giant Dell informed its customers on Thursday that it had suffered a data breach involving its customers’ names and physical addresses.
In an email seen by TechCrunch and shared by several people on social In media reports, the computer maker wrote that it was investigating “an incident involving a Dell portal, which contains a database containing limited types of customer information related to purchases from Dell.”
Dell wrote that information accessed in the breach included customer names, physical addresses, and “Dell hardware and order information, including service tag, item description, date of order and associated warranty information. Dell did not specify whether the incident was caused by malicious third parties or an unintentional error.
The hacked data did not include email addresses, phone numbers, financial or payment information, or “any highly sensitive customer information,” according to the company.
The company downplayed the impact of the breach in the post.
“We believe there is no significant risk to our customers given the type of information involved,” Dell wrote in the email.
When TechCrunch reached out to Dell for comment, asking specific questions such as how many customers were affected, how the breach occurred and why the company considers a breach of physical addresses not to pose “a significant risk ” for customers, the company responded with a boilerplate version of the email sent to affected customers.
A Dell spokesperson, who declined to be named, later added: “We do not release this specific information from our ongoing investigation. » Dell did not provide a reason.
On April 29, the website Daily Dark Web reported that someone on a hacking forum was advertising “customer and other information about systems purchased from Dell between 2017 and 2024.”
The person claimed that the dataset included information on 49 million people, along with information such as full name, full address, system service number, customer number, etc. This is data that matches what Dell revealed was stolen.
Dell’s spokesperson declined to comment on the forum post and did not dispute the hacker’s claims.
UPDATE, May 9, 2:12 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to add information about the hacking forum post.
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