IKEA has admitted that its Canadian wing has become a victim of a large data breach that could have spilled personal details of approximately 95,000 customers to hackers. The online furniture retailer stated it has informed the Office of Commissioner (OPC) Data Watch Dog of Canada and has launched an investigation into the fraudulent data access conducted by cyber crooks in between March 1st- March 3rd, 2022.
Compromised data of IKEA Canada customers include email addresses, names, phone numbers, postal codes and physical addresses to which the ordered furniture units were supplied.
Good news is no car data or other banking information was available for access to the cyber criminals. However, there is a high probability that the current data that has leaked to hackers can lead to incidents such as identity thefts and brute force attacks- for those customers who use their mobile phone numbers as their password.
The IT Staff of IKEA store have taken appropriate measures to mitigate the risks from the breach and may contact the affected customers on how to counter risks arising in the future.
Note 1: In November 2021, a Qakbot malware attack on IKEA email servers of led to data spill of info related to customers, suppliers, business partners and some employees. Identity of those behind the incident is still unknown.
Note 2: In the year 2021, the IKEA France business wing was caught in a legal tangle for allegedly conducting espionage on its employees & customers. Later reports were in that the surveillance was conducted by two former employees linked to the online furniture store and were caught doing background checks of customers raising disputes with Ikea products and services.
