Samsung has admitted that a threat actor accessed the personal information of some of its American customers, but hasn’t said how many.
In a statement Friday, the company said that on August 4th it discovered that in late July there had been what it calls “a cybersecurity incident that affected some customer information” held in its U.S. systems.
That included names, dates of birth, contact and demographic information, and product registration information. The information accessed for each affected customer may vary.
There was no detail on whether the customers were purchasers of Samsung smartphones, tablets, laptops, smart watches, or TVs, or of the many household products it makes, such as refrigerators, microwave ovens, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners.
Nor was there an explanation of how the attackers accessed the data.
Victims are being notified by email.
“We want to assure our customers that the issue did not impact Social Security numbers or credit and debit card numbers,” the statement added.
The company said it has hired “a leading outside cybersecurity firm” and has notified law enforcement agencies.
Headquartered in South Korea, Samsung Electronics posted about C$13.5 billion in profit in the second quarter of the year on C$74 billion of worldwide revenue.
In addition to its huge consumer products divisions, Samsung is a major manufacturer of electronic components. It reported that earnings in its memory business improved both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter. The system semiconductor businesses (System LSI and foundry businesses combined) achieved a record high quarterly profit. Samsung Display Corporation (SDC) saw record second-quarter revenue and operating profit for mobile displays driven, it said, by solid demand from major customers.