Online wine seller Vinomofo hit in major data breach

In emails to customers seen by this masthead, Vinomofo claimed the risk to customers from the exposure of their information was “low”.

“Vinomofo does not hold identity or financial data such as passports, driver’s licences or credit cards/bank details,” it said in an online note to customers. Customers’ payment details were held by a “payment system that is provided by our partner financial institutions”, the spokesman said.

“While the investigation established no passwords, identity documents or financial information were accessed, the database includes other information about customers and members.”

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It said names, addresses, emails, gender, phone numbers and dates of birth may have been accessed.The company said it was now contacting customers because it had confirmed data had been accessed.

The Vinomofo customer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of their employment, said they wanted to know when the breach occurred and exactly which data had been taken.

But the company’s spokesman said no further information would be released.

“In the interests of the privacy of our customers and partners, and to reduce the risk of attempts by scammers to target them, we are not publicly releasing any further details about the incident,” he said.

Vinomofo said it had data on customers who had purchased from its online store in accordance with its privacy policy, allowed customers to request their data be deleted and is investigating whether any stolen data has been published online.

Customers should be vigilant for scams and do not need to replace any identity documents, Vinomofo said, adding it has engaged the national identity protection service IDCARE.

The federal government recently flagged tougher fines for companies that fail to properly safeguard Australians’ data. The penalties are capped at $2.2 million per offence.

The Resolve Political Monitor, which is exclusive to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, found that 59 per cent of survey respondents were in favour of penalties worth many millions of dollars.

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