Banco Santander Confirms Data Breach, Assures Customersβ Transactions Remain Secure
15 May 2024 at 06:30
Santander, one of the largest banks in the eurozone, confirmed that an unauthorized party had gained access to a database containing customer and employee information.
The Banco Santander data breach is stated to stem from the database of a third-party provider and limited to the only some of the bank's customers in specific regions where it operated, as well as some of its current and former employees. However, the bank's own operations and systems are reportedly unaffected.
Banco Santander is a banking services provider founded on March 21, 1857 and headquartered in Madrid, Spain. The provider operates across Europe, North America, and South America. It's services include global payments services, online bank and digital assets.
Customer and Employee Data Compromised in Santander Data Breach
The bankΒ reported that upon becomingΒ aware of the data breach, it had immediately implemented measures to contain the incident, such as blocking access to its database from the compromised sourceΒ asΒ well asΒ establishing additional fraud prevention mechanisms to protect impacted customers and affected parties. After conducting an investigation, the bank had determined that the leaked information stemmed from a thid-party database and consisted of details of customers from Santander Chile, Spain and Uruguay regions along with some data on some current and former Santander employees. Despite the third-party database breach, customer data from Santander markets and businesses operating in different regions were not affected. [caption id="attachment_68444" align="alignnone" width="2422"] Source: santander.com[/caption] The bank apologized for the incident and acknowledged concerns arising from the data breach, taking action to directly notify the affected customers and employees. The security team also informed regulators and law enforcement of the incident details, stating that the bank would continue to work with them during the investigation. Santander assured its customers that no transactional data, nor transaction-facilitating credentials such as banking details and passwords were contained in the database. The statement reported that neither the bank's operations nor systems were affected, and that customers could continue with secure transaction operations. Along with the official statement in response to the data breach, the bank had provided additional advice on its site on dealing with the data breach:
- Santander will never ask you for codes, OTPs or passwords.
- Always verify information your receive and contact us through official bank channels.
- If you receive any suspicious message, email or SMS report it to your bank directly or by contacting reportphishing@gruposantander.com.
- Never access your online banking via links from suspicious emails or unsolicited emails.
- Never ignore security notifications or alerts from Santander related to your accounts.