Vodafone Australia was accused of an “unbelievable” lapse of security which saw the personal information of “millions” of customers made available to miscreants, against the backdrop of continued complaints about the poor service the company is alleged to deliver to its mobile subscribers. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, there are “thousands” of people with logins to the Vodafone customer database which could be passed to third parties, in order to gain full access to the account details of “about 4 million” subscribers – including billing data and call histories. The report said it was aware of “criminal groups paying for the private information of some Vodafone customers.” Apparently, the issue is that Vodafone hosts the sensitive information on a portal that can be accessed via the internet, rather than a “closed” system that is only accessible internally. The company has reset passwords and begun a “thorough investigation,” SMH says, although it was also noted that the country’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner is also set to talk to Vodafone.

The leak comes as Vodafone Australia faces a class action lawsuit alleging poor performance from the company’s mobile network – it was reported that 9,000 customers have already indicated their support.  According to Piper Alderman, the legal company investigating the potential of a suit, “calls dropping out, reception issues, poor data performance – this is not what Vodafone customers signed up for. Vodafone, however, has continued to charge customers on its mobile plans, without providing the service it promised.” The law firm is looking to “recover losses suffered by [Vodafone’s] customers over the last three years, plus interest.” It is also looking at potential claims from customers of 3 Australia, which was merged with Vodafone Australia in 2009 to create Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA). VHA is in the process of integrating the two previously separate networks, and recently announced the end of a network sharing joint venture with rival Telstra. Last week, in a blog post, Cormac Hodgkinson, director of customer service and experience for VHA, said that “building greater reliability and capacity into the Vodafone network is our highest priority and our biggest investment.”