DOHA: Qatar National Bank, the Middle East’s largest lender by assets, said it had taken immediate steps to ensure customers would not suffer any financial loss after a security breach last week exposed personal data of thousands of clients.
“We are taking every measure to protect the privacy of our customers and have engaged an external third party expert to review all our systems to ensure no vulnerabilities exist,” the bank said in a statement on Sunday.
“All our customers’ accounts are secure,” it added, although it was not clear how the bank planned to protect accounts whose details, including customer names and passwords, have already been published.
The 1.5GB trove of leaked documents posted online last week included the bank details, telephone numbers and dates of birth of several account holders.
The bank said the breach was an attack on its reputation, rather than specifically targeted at the customers, and only involved a portion of Qatar based customers.
The statement did not mention the identity of the hackers.
QNB said some of the data released may be accurate but much of it was constructed and “contains a mixture of information from the attack as well as other non-QNB sources, such as personal data from social media channels.”
"All our customers’ accounts are secure, and as always, we encourage customers to be vigilant, taking the usual precautions of frequently changing their usernames and passwords through QNB Group internet banking. Our call center is also available 24/7 and any concerned customer can speak to a representative if they have any inquiries regarding their accounts.
"We deeply regret any inconvenience this may have caused to our customers. We at QNB Group place the highest priority on data security and deploy the strongest measures possible to ensure we maintain your trust and the integrity of your information," the statement added.
The Peninsula/Reuters
