Louis Vuitton reveals major data breach impacting Australian customers
A luxury fashion label has revealed a major data breach has impacted its Australian customers.
Fashion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Fashion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Louis Vuitton Australia has confirmed a data breach that exposed a wide range of customer information, including names, birthdates, contact details, purchase history and personal preferences.
In an email sent to affected clients on Monday, the luxury brand revealed an “unauthorised third party” had accessed its internal systems, taking personal information from a client database.
According to the company, the data involved includes first and last names, gender, country, phone number, email address, postal address, date of birth, as well as purchase and preferences data.
“We regret to inform you that an unauthorised third party temporarily accessed our system and obtained some of your information,” the email stated.
While no passwords, credit card details or bank information were compromised, Louis Vuitton has urged customers to be wary of suspicious messages or contact attempts.
“Given the nature of the data involved, we warmly recommend that you remain vigilant against any unsolicited communication or other suspicious correspondence, including emails, phone calls or text messages,” the company said. “While we have no evidence that your data has been misused to date, phishing attempts, fraud attempts, or unauthorised use of your information may occur.”
The breach was first detected on July 2, and Louis Vuitton claims it acted immediately to block the hacker’s access and contain the incident.
“Technical measures were immediately taken to contain the incident after its occurrence, notably by blocking the unauthorised access,” the company wrote.
“Louis Vuitton teams are mobilised to cooperate with the competent authorities.”
The company added that it had notified authorities and engaged cybersecurity experts to investigate.
“We would like to reassure you that no password nor financial information — such as credit card information, bank details, or other financial accounts, was contained in the database accessed,” the email said.
The luxury fashion retailer stressed that the breach has been contained and apologised for the incident.
“We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this situation may cause you,” it said.
Louis Vuitton Australia has been asked how many people are impacted and why it took 20 days to alert customers.
It comes amid a wave of data breaches on large Australian companies, which have led experts to advocate for the right to force companies to remove personal details from databases.
A move they argue would help combat the growing impact of mass data theft.
More than 25 million customer accounts have been exposed in just three cyber attacks involving major companies Qantas, Optus and Medibank.
University of Queensland cybersecurity expert Ryan Ko told ABC that Australians exposed to cybercrime risk are “basically just a sitting duck” when their data is leaked.
Originally published as Louis Vuitton reveals major data breach impacting Australian customers