online gambling cyber attackContinual drops in the shares of Betfair since their flotation on the London Stock Exchange, and key management departure woes, have been plaguing the massive online gambling operator Betfair – ensuring their hot-spot remains in industry news. However, this seems to be the least of their woes in face of the fact that they did not inform customers of a major cyber attack which took place just 18 months ago. According to the news reports, millions of credit cards details were stolen. Together with over 3.1 million account names, including encrypted security questions, plus 2.9 million usernames, and almost 90,000 bank account details with account usernames. Oops!
As the data stolen did not constitute a fraud risk – Betfair in its wisdom believed it was not necessary to inform customers when the theft took place in March of last year. Considering the company was getting ready for stock market flotation in October, this information coming to light only now does not make the company look any better. They maintain that their security measures were able to recover the stolen data in tact. It seems pretty obvious to us, that the reason why customers were not notified was to prevent mass migration and possible closure of accounts – this would be bad publicly for flotation. However, karma still seems to have played a role, and the Betfair share price has done nothing but plummet – at a drop of 41% – it is certainly not seen as performing.

The report on the theft came to light just six days after Betfair announced their intention to float. However the theft had been reported to the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency. Apparently a review of security has taken place, and systems have been strengthened to minimize the chances of this ever taking place again. Apparently the criminal masterminds behind the attack were believed to be operating from Cambodia, and Betfair did not discover the theft until 2 month AFTER it had taken place.
Written by Neha A