Online glitch reveals Sky customers’ bank details

SATELLITE broadcaster Sky television has launched an investigation after personal details including bank account numbers of 33 people from several areas of Wexford became available online.

Jim McMahon was looking up information on the area where he lived — Cois Mara housing estate in Rosslare Strand — when information on neighbours became available.

Mr McMahon claims that, since the problem was discovered, residents have been getting “silent” telephone calls.

“I did a search on the Google site. I put in the name of our estate, Cois Mara housing estate, to carry out a search to see if anything relating to the housing estate was available. The results came back in the form of a spreadsheet, while underneath on the sheet was the name and address of one of my neighbours.

“I clicked on it. As a result the name, address, landline and mobile telephone numbers, bank account number and banking sort code, were all available on the sheet. The spreadsheet had Sky account numbers on it and the prices on the sheet matched up with Sky prices.”

Mr McMahon said he became alarmed with what he was seeing: “I found 32 different spreadsheets all with different names and personal details. I became alarmed and my wife went to the neighbours who were on the spreadsheet informing them that their personal details were available on the web.”

After he rang Sky, the offending website was taken down.

“With such personal details available on the site it’s very serious. Anyone could have utilised those people’s accounts. When Sky was told about it, they took the information offline and basically said that was the end of the problem,” he said.

According to Mr McMahon, neighbours believe this occurred as the result of a sales promotion by Sky when selling their services in the area. Names of people in Gorey, New Ross, Wexford town and Oulart were also on the spreadsheets.

“I have taken down the information for evidence. But since this has appeared on the site people are getting phone calls relating to this, while some of the calls are silent, which is quite frightening,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Sky television said the problem arose with a website owned by a “retail partner” of the satellite broadcaster. “There had been problems arising from the website from a security perspective,” she said. “As soon as we heard about it, we contacted the business partner and arranged for them to take it down. We asked for a full investigation.”

Sky said there wasn’t “a big number” of people involved and the issue was resolved as soon as they became aware of it.

Sky offered affected customers six months’ free subscription as a gesture of goodwill. “We take the issue of data security very seriously,” said a Sky spokesperson.