UK bookie Ladbrokes have moved to reassure customers after users of a popular sportsbook forum received emails requesting that they change passwords. An SBR user told his fellow forum-dwellers that he had received an email from Ladbrokes that seemed to suggest his information might have been compromised in some way. CalvinAyre.com contacted Ladbrokes, who cleared up the situation for anyone worrying about their details being used.
“There is no suggestion any accounts have been accessed inappropriately (and no evidence the third party company even accessed the information which has now been deleted) and it affects a small proportion of our customer base,” the spokesperson told CalvinAyre.com. “That said it is an unfortunate error and we apologise to all affected.”
The alarm was first triggered by SBRforum user ‘Nietzsche’ who posted an email from Ladbrokes stating that his customer I.D. and password details had been passed on to “parties” that Ladbrokes work with. The email went on to explain that they “do not believe that any customer account has been compromised as a result of a breach” but still instructed the user to change his password the next time he logged in. The full transcript of the email can be found at the link.
The matter sounds like it has been dealt with very promptly by Ladbrokes before there was a chance for things to get complicated. Gambling industry firms overall are usually extremely security conscious and the vigilance by firms mean that situations like this are extremely rare, especially in the UK due to the strict regulatory process companies go through.
