DSG Retail Ltd (who trade as Currys PC World and Dixons) have been fined by the ICO £500k for a number of serious data security failings which led to malware scraping credit card details from POS systems in their stores and unlawful access to customer database records. The infringement happened pre-GDPR so the ICO has issued the maximum £500k fine under old data protection.
In its penalty notice it sets out that the 9 month infringement affected at least 14m people and lists a long list of security related failings including:
- Lack of network segregation for the POS network
- Lack of local firewall configuration
- Inadequate software patching
- Lack of vulnerability scanning
- Incorrectly managed application whitelisting
- Ineffective incident response systems
- Lack of appropriate PCI-DSS controls
- Failure to manage access permissions (at admin level)
And this isn’t the first time the retail group have been in trouble with the ICO: Carphone Warehouse, which is part of the same group were fined £400k last January for similar failings.
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