Cebuana Lhuillier discovers data breach that affected info of over 900,000 clients

Cebuana has already reported the incident to the National Privacy Commission (NPC) and has already implemented safety measures to protect their clients’ personal data. (Photo: Cebuana Lhuillier/Facebook)

Philippine-based pawnshop Cebuana Lhuillier on Saturday, January 19, revealed that it has discovered a data breach which affected the information of its 900,000 clients.

According to PJ Lhuillier Group of Companies (PJLGC), the parent company of Cebuana, the data breach was discovered in its email server that is used for their marketing purposes.

Some of their clients’ personal data that were affected include birthdays, addresses, and source of income.

Although it is suffering a data breach, Cebuana assured that its transaction details were “not compromised.”

“The company’s main servers remain safe and protected,” PJLGC said.

Cebuana has already reported the incident to the National Privacy Commission (NPC) and has already implemented safety measures to protect their clients’ personal data.

It added that their affected clients have been informed about the data breach and were guided on what ways they should do to further protect their personal information.

“We are committed to ensuring the data privacy of our clients and adhere to strict security protocols in protecting our interests,” the company said.

“We will provide additional information regarding the incident as soon as it becomes available,” it added.

In a report by Yuga Tech, Cebuana informed their clients about the security incident by sending an email to them.

According to the company’s letter, Cebuana detected that one of its email servers was attempted to use as a “relay” to send out spam.

After a follow-up investigation into the matter, the company discovered “unauthorized downloading of contact lists” which took place on August 5, 8, and 12 last year.

The report added that clients were advised to “change passwords in all accounts immediately, do not put the same password in all accounts, and be cautious in providing sensitive personal information to other parties.”

Cebuana Lhuillier Pawnshop is one of the country’s largest non-bank financial services provider, having 2,500 branches nationwide.