HKTVmall reports data leak with 4.38 million customer data accessed

Hong Kong Technology Venture Company's eCommerce platform HKTVmall has detected abnormal and suspicious activities in its computer system, admitting that there was unauthorised access to customer information of the shopping platform.

In a statement, HKTVmall said information of a total of 4.38 million registered customers was accessed. Customer information involved in the incident may include registered names of customers' accounts, encrypted and masked login passwords, registered and contact email addresses. Other information that may be accessed by unauthorised people included recipient names, delivery addresses and the phone numbers of those orders made by customers who placed purchase orders between December 2014 to September 2018. If customers have linked their HKTVmall account to Facebook account or Apple ID, unauthorised accessed information may also include the date of birth, registered name and email addresses for their Facebook account and Apple ID.

However, credit card information and order details remained unaffected in this incident. The company said there was no evidence to prove that customer information had been misused nor financial loss had been incurred by customers, it will take responsibility for unauthorised purchases made on HKTVmallrelated to this incident.

The company said it had conducted a thorough investigation and engaged one international and one local cybersecurity firms on 27 January 2022 to conduct further investigation, enhancing HKTVmall’s network and system security measures in addition to the current 24-hour network security monitoring. In addition, it had reported the incident to the Hong Kong Police and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Hong Kong

“On behalf of the group management, we hereby express our sincere apology to the affected customers. Upon discovery of such incident, the group management, our technical department and the two cybersecurity firms have made continuous efforts on investigation and to strengthen system security, and will make full efforts to prevent further attacks," said Ricky Wong, vice chairman and group CEO of HKTV.

Meanwhile, the company has also announced its record-breaking business performance in January 2022. HKTVmall said the news was the result of the pre-Chinese New Year effect and the tightening pandemic prevention measures. Its gross merchandise value (GMV) on order intake reached HK$699.0 million; average daily GMV on order intake recorded HK$22.5 million, representing a year-on-year 23.9% and 23.6% growth respectively compared to January 2021.

The average daily order number in January 2022 reached 47,400, equivalent to a 32.8% year-on-year growth.

Related articles
TBWA\Hong Kong launches new commerce offering zooming in on HKTVMall
HKTVmall tech arm Shoalter buys stake in Indonesian online wellness firm
AlipayHK joins HKTVmall prior to e-voucher scheme