The major mobile virtual network provider Lyca Mobile, headquartered in the United Kingdom, has officially acknowledged a cybersecurity breach that led to service disruptions for millions of its customers.
Lyca Mobile, self-proclaimed as the largest international mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) globally, confirmed the incident in an official statement this week. According to the statement, the security breach affected the ability of customers to top up their account balances through Lyca's website, mobile application, or in-store services over the past weekend. Additionally, it caused disruptions to some domestic and international phone calls.
The impact of this cyberattack was widespread , affecting all Lyca Mobile markets except for the United States, Australia, Ukraine, and Tunisia. The company has stated that it is currently conducting an urgent investigation to determine whether any personal data was compromised during the incident.
Lyca Mobile assured its customers that all their records were fully encrypted and pledged to provide updates as the investigation progressed with the assistance of its expert partners.
Regarding the nature of the cyberattack, Lyca Mobile's spokesperson, Cara Whitehouse, declined to provide details, emphasizing that the primary focus is on restoring all operational services to normalcy. The company did not disclose the names of the third-party incident response teams it is collaborating with or offer specifics about its encryption methods.
Lyca Mobile has successfully restored mobile telecommunication services across all its markets. However, some undisclosed operational services are still in the process of being reinstated.
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) of the United Kingdom, responsible for data protection, stated that it has not received any breach report from Lyca Mobile. Under standard protocols, companies are required to notify the ICO within 72 hours of discovering a data breach.
It's worth noting that, at the time of this report's publication, Lyca's statement on its website contained a "no index" code, instructing search engines to ignore the webpage. This makes it more challenging for affected customers to locate the statement through search engine results. Lyca Mobile did not provide an explanation for this decision.
In the course of reporting on this cyberattack, TechCrunch identified a separate suspected security incident involving Lyca Mobile. This incident pertains to a publicly accessible content management system containing press releases, including Lyca's statement regarding the cyberattack. TechCrunch notified Lyca Mobile about this publicly accessible system before publishing this report.
Lyca's spokesperson, Whitehouse, clarified that this system serves as a test environment for vendors and partners. For safety reasons, TechCrunch is not providing a direct link to this system, which remains accessible without a password at the time of this report.
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