It is also a treasure trove for anyone who wants to build more sophisticated and damaging attacks – it’s an intelligence feed for hackers this simple leak could spawn many more and worse.” “It all has a dollar value and is saleable online (and will be for sale already). “Aside from the painfully obvious ‘please don’t store unencrypted data in unencrypted data stores and be at all surprised when it leaks’, this makes the point very well that the actual medium in which data is stored is irrelevant the fact that these were voice files makes no difference to the value of the data to hackers,” he told Verdict. Malcolm Taylor, director of cyber advisory at cybersecurity consultancy ITC Secure, described the Teletext Holidays data breach as “an intelligence feed for hackers”. Data can then be used to carry out identity fraud, phishing or targeted email attacks.
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It is common for malicious hackers to sell databases containing personal data on underground forums, where it can be merged with additional personal details to create a full identity profile. Personal data, such as email addresses and dates of birth, can prove valuable information for online criminals. Security implications of Teletext Holidays data breach In the exposed data, approximately 9,000 phonecalls are accompanied with text transcripts, potentially making it easier for a malicious hacker to scrape for personal data. In February 2016, Teletext Holidays implemented the natural language artificial intelligence analytics system to turn call centre conversations into text. Verdict asked Teletext to confirm if the exposed data related to a project with Indian technology company Zen3, which Teletext Holidays said “is not the case”. The customer calls appear to have been recorded as part of a call centre analytics project. In addition to the audio files, Verdict discovered 9,000 VTT files – a format for providing captions to audio files.
The files were stored in a data repository titled ‘speechanalytics’. In another, a couple is placed on hold for several minutes, during which they discuss whether to go ahead with the booking, before whispering “I’m going to hang up”. In one, a mother can be heard trying to calm her crying children while she waits. In some calls heard by Verdict, Teletext customers continued to be recorded while put on hold, with Verdict hearing couples talking privately among themselves. “The company is taking all appropriate steps to ensure that this situation does not occur in the future.” Customers recorded while on hold “We are in the process of reporting the matter to the ICO, and we will fully comply with our wider legal obligations. In a statement, a Truly Travel spokesperson (trading as Teletext Holidays) spokesperson said: Teletext Holidays removed all 532,000 files almost immediately after Verdict notified the company. The names and dates of birth of accompanying passengers, such as partners and children, can also be heard. In a very small number of calls, Verdict heard customers begin to say their card number out loud, before the call centre operator interjects.
Instead of saying their card number and three-digit security number, customers type them into the keypad – protecting the most serious financial information. This includes the type of card, name on card and expiry date. In conversations where a holiday is booked, customers also tell the Teletext Holidays employees partial card details. In recordings heard by Verdict, customers can be heard booking holidays, amending bookings, enquiring about trips and making complaints.ĭetails about each holiday, including flight time, location and cost, can also be heard. They range from a few minutes to up to an hour and, based on accents, appear to involve UK customers. The calls took place between the 10 April 2016 and 10 August 2016.
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