Comcast discovered over the weekend that shared hacks of other companies resulted in the email addresses and passwords of 200,000 customers being sold online in the dark web.
USA Today reports that on Monday, the company locked down all the affected subscribers and forced them to reset their passwords and other information. It is part of a list of 590,000 email-password combinations that the unnamed seller claimed are from Comcast customers, according to CSO, a security website.
The stolen data were being sold for $1,000 for the full list, although the seller was willing to sell 100,000 email-password combinations for $300. However, Comcast said that only one-third of the 590,000 stolen data peddled on the dark web were real.
To access the dark web, made up of networks not available on public internet, specific software is needed. That web is the marketplace for illegal goods and services. The selling price of stolen American credit and debit cards range from $4 to $30, while bank login credentials sell for as high as $190, according to McAfee labs, reports the Washington Post.
With the lock down, Comcast customers were required to log in, verify their identity and reset their passwords. Comcast spokeswoman Jenni Moyer says there is no evidence of a security breach since the list is a compilation of previously filched data that has been on the dark web for some time.
The 200,000 affected customers is less than 1 percent of Comcast's 28 million subscriber base.
The stolen log in information could be used to buy items with stored credit card information as well as to watch TV and other Comcast contents. But the ID and password combinations would not grant the buyer of the stolen data access to the credit card information of the Comcast customer. However, since people often reuse passwords, by combining the stolen data, it could be used to break into other accounts of the Comcast subscriber such as bank and credit cards.