Southern Water Data Breach - Changing Bank Account

flaneurs_lobster

If your online bank account access is secure and you have made access to your email account as secure as you can (long, hard password & MFA) then there is no need to be overly concerned.

OTOH, decent bung can be had by swapping your bank account to one offering a bonus to do so - if you have no particular affection for your current bank.

50FootWave

I am also in this situation, but am wondering if anyone has received notifications from Experian since signing up, which warn of your email being sold and published online?

I have now recieved three of these, and have followed all of the advice (changing passwords etc), but am understandably really alarmed by this.

I have emailed Southern Water (twice, still no response) - should I be concerned? I'm quite a pragmatic person, but the knowedge that this is happening makes me feel really uncomfortable.

Anyone else had the same?

flaneurs_lobster

Please understand that what Experian is reporting is that there exists a list online that contains your email address - nothing more. Pretty much anyone who has had an email address for more than a couple of years will have their address on one of these lists - some of them contain millions of addresses. 

If you have secured your email account with a long, complicated password/passkey and preferably instigated some form of multi-factor authentification against the account then you should have minimal concern (but still practice good online hygiene especially around unsolicited email).

Not really sure what good emailing Southern Water will do. Having a good moan about their crap online security may provide a cathartic release I suppose. If you have evidence of a material loss due to this data breach then go ahead and make a claim against them - I've not heard that anyone has had such a loss.

MattMattMattUK

robin.uk said:

I am unfortunately one of the ones who's personal data has been lost by Southern Water in the January 2024 data breach. The data (stolen by the Black Basta ransomware group) includes: name, address, telephone, email address, customer reference, bank account number and bank sort code amongst other things.

Southern Water has offered 12 months free membership of Experian Identity Plus which offers some help in monitoring for fraud and offers the ability to 'freeze' your credit line. The disadvantage is that it's not really proactive if someone's trying to access my bank account and after 12 months you have to pay £11 per month to keep it.

Rather than waiting for fraud to happen and dealing with the fallout, I am considering changing my bank account. I could either ask my current bank to do this (if they are willing) or I could simply switch to another bank under the Current Account Switch Service. I understand that both options could affect my credit score in the short term.

Is this overkill? My feeling is that if all my personal data is 'out there' then it's not a case of if the fraudsters come knocking, but when and while there's not much I can do, changing bank details is one little step.

Appologies if this query is in the wrong section. I figured as it affects my bank account, this would be the appropriate place in the forum. Apologies if this assumption is incorrect.

Firstly your credit score is meaningless and you can safely ignore it entirely. Secondly yes this is overkill, the equivalent of using a nuclear warhead as a firework.