On December 18, Comcast notified customers of a "recent data security incident" with one of its software companies that exposed their personal information to an outside party. In October, someone gained "unauthorized access" to customers' usernames and hashed passwords for a period of four days. And it gets worse: Comcast says that "for some customers, other information was also included, such as names, contact information, last four digits of social security numbers, dates of birth and/or secret questions and answers."
As CBS News reports, the data breach seems to have affected basically everyone subscribed to Xfinity—some 36 million Comcast Xfinity subscribers. The company reported over 32 million internet customers in a recent earnings report; according to the data breach notification Comcast filed with the Maine attorney general's office on Monday, the October hack affected 35,879,455 people. That's nearly 36 million, "including residents," presumably meaning household members of Xfinity subscribers. That makes it hard to pin down exactly how many customers were victims of the breach, but regardless, if you're an Xfinity subscriber, change your password immediately.
