萬國法律事務所

Nokia Taiwan, the Finnish multinational handset maker, announced that five of its Taiwanese websites had been hacked in early February, giving the hackers access to certain personal information of local consumers. That data included consumers’ names, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers and other information required to participate in Nokia’s marketing activities. However, Nokia Taiwan assured customers that none of the customers’ classified information was involved in this incident, and that details regarding customers’ credit cards, medical information and ID numbers were not leaked.

The hackers released the personal data of 170,000 users. But, in addition to the leaked information, Nokia suspects that approximately 1.5 million items, including consumers’ transaction records registered in order to attend the company’s product promotion activities, had been hacked. Of the 1.5 million hacked records, less than 7,000 items included passwords, and most of the data had been registered with the company database for more than one year and that a substantial portion of data had been stored for more than seven years. Nokia indicated that it had sent e-mail notices and text messages to the relevant customers to alert them of this situation.

The Finnish mobile phone manufacturer apologized for the hacking and warned that the customers might receive spam e-mails or text messages from the hackers. The website was shut down after the hacking was discovered, and the database stored in the servers was deleted to facilitate system repairs. Nokia Taiwan stated that it will not use the database for future marketing activities, and that the information in it will be deleted permanently. However, the chairman of the Taiwan Consumers’ Foundation asserted that as this incident involved over one million people, it was a serious security problem, and that as such, Nokia should provide compensation for its customers.