You may be entitled to financial compensation if you got the ASOS 'hack' notification
Customers who were affected by the ASOS 'hack' might be entitled to financial compensation, according to experts.
Users received a notification on their phones on Tuesday (6 October) saying that the retailer had been hacked.
The message read: “Dear ASOS DPO and IT, we have fully compromised the Snowflake instance. Engage with us, or we will leak it,” followed by a Telegram link.
The fast fashion retailer said the cyber attacker gained access to some personal data, including names and contact details.
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They were also able to access ‘certain non-personal account-related information’, ASOS said.
ASOS stressed that no payment card information or account passwords were accessed.
Under UK data protection law, you may be able to claim compensation if a company has failed to protect your information and that has caused you financial loss or distress.
Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, said: “You don’t necessarily have to be out of pocket to have a claim, but you would need to show that you’ve suffered harm. The bottom line is that compensation is possible, but there’s no automatic payout just because your details have been exposed.
“Much will depend on what happened to your data and the impact it has had on you.”
Nikki Stopford, co-founder of consumer rights group Consumer Voice, added: “If you think you’ve been affected, keep any messages from ASOS and a record of any financial loss or distress you experience.
“And be very wary of anyone contacting you out of the blue offering compensation or asking for personal or financial information.”
It comes after Data storage firm Snowflake has said a cybersecurity breach at ASOS was not caused by a vulnerability or flaw with its platform.
A Snowflake spokeswoman said: “We are aware of ASOS' notification to their customers regarding this incident.
“We can confirm this issue did not in any way result from a vulnerability, weakness, flaw, or misconfiguration with the Snowflake service, platform, or internal environments, and was not caused by Snowflake.
“No remediation is required for Snowflake customers.
“We continue to encourage adherence to our security best practices.”
In an update, ASOS added: “There is no action you need to take on your account.
“However, please remain cautious of unexpected messages or calls claiming to be from ASOS.
“We will never ask you to share passwords, security codes or payment details through an unsolicited message or call.”
Anish Vij