One of Europe's biggest Gym chain Basic-Fit hacked, data of lakhs of members leaked: What members need to do urgently

Gym chain Basic-Fit has been hit by hacker attack. Hackers broke into the systems of Basic-Fit, stealing the data of approximately lakhs of members. One of Europe's biggest Gym chain, Basic-Fit has over 2,150 gyms in 12 countries across Europe.

The gym chain reportedly has over 5.8 million members. According to the company, the leaked data includes membership information, names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and bank details. Regarding membership information, it concerns the subscription number, the type of subscription, whether a member has paid in full, and which gyms someone visited last week. Basic-Fit does not keep copies of members’ identity documents, so these have not leaked.

The hackers did not gain access to passwords, the company said.Data of Basic-Fit members across countries has reportedly leaked. The company, however, did not disclose the total number of affected members. Basic-Fit claimed that affected members have been informed.According to Basic-Fit, the unauthorised access was detected by its system monitoring tools and was stopped within minutes, but the hackers had already downloaded data.

At this time, Basic-Fit has no indication that the leaked data has been misused, the company said. Basic-Fit claimed that currently there are no indications that the leaked data has been misused. However, like all data breaches, Basic-Fit data leak too raises Phishing risks. As any personal data that has been leaked can be misused for Phishing attacks. For example, IBAN numbers have been stolen, criminals can use a Phishing email to pretend that an amount is being debited via direct debit and make Basic-Fit customers enter credit card details.

As security company Fortinet warns that Data breaches fuel phishing attacks by providing attackers with stolen personal data, such as emails, phone numbers, and company information, allowing them to create highly targeted, legitimate-looking "spear-phishing" messages. These stolen credentials are used to build trust, trick users into revealing passwords, or deliver malware, ultimately leading to further security compromises.

What Basic-Fit members should do urgently

Though Basic-Fit has claimed that not all customers have been affected by the data breach and that it has informed those impacted, however, it is important that all members of the Gym change passwords of their linked accounts immediately. This includes email accounts and those linked to bank and credit cards. It is important for all Basic-Fit customers to act immediately to protect their identity and finances. Change passwords for the compromised account and any others using the same credentials, place a fraud alert or security freeze on your credit reports and monitor bank statements for unauthorized activity, and activate any free credit monitoring services offered.