Italy fines WINDTRE €1.7 million over data breaches

MILAN, July 16 (Reuters) - ‌Italy's data ​protection ​authority has fined telecoms operator WINDTRE €1.7 million ($1.94 million) for "serious shortcomings" in its ‌data security systems, leading to two unauthorised ⁠breaches and the exposure of personal information belonging to ‌more than 365,000 customers.

• ‌The investigation was prompted by the CK Hutchison owned company's notification of the breaches in ​February 2025.

• It revealed that hackers posed as support technicians to gain access to ⁠corporate systems through employees at two retail points, the authority ​said in a statement.

• The compromised data included personal and contact details of ​customers, with sensitive payment information, ‌such as bank account details, partially obscured credit card numbers, and expiration ⁠dates, affecting 41,359 of them.

• The regulator found that WINDTRE had failed to adequately manage access ⁠credentials and digital certificates.

• Moreover, security checks conducted by ​the company did not detect vulnerabilities that the authority said would have been identified with more thorough assessments.

• ‌The authority ordered WINDTRE to enhance its protection for access credentials and ‌digital certificates, implement secure password management tools, and ⁠strengthen cybersecurity protocols ‌to prevent similar ​incidents.

• WINDTRE declined to comment.

($1 = 0.8743 euros)

(Reporting by Gianluca Semeraro, editing by Kirsten ‌Donovan)

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