Bell Canada alerts customers who may be affected by data breach

Bell Canada head office is seen on Nun's Island, Wednesday, August 5, 2015, in Montreal. (Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Bell Canada is alerting some customers that their information has been illegally accessed in a potential data breach.

The company's notice doesn't say how many Bell customers were affected but media reports say the total could be 100,000.

Bell says the information consisted primarily of names and email addresses and that there's no indication that any credit card, banking or other information was accessed.

A Bell Canada executive vice-president, John Watson, apologized on behalf of the company.

Watson also says additional security, authentication and identification requirements have been implemented.

The announcement comes eight months after Bell Canada revealed that an anonymous hacker had obtained some customers' names and telephone numbers as well as email addresses.

Statement from Bell:

Hackers illegally accessed some customer information, including name, email address and in some cases phone number, user name and/or account number, for a limited number of Bell customers. There is no indication that any credit card or other banking information was accessed.

We apologize to our customers and are contacting all those affected. There is an active RCMP investigation of the incident and Bell has notified appropriate government agencies including the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

Bell works closely with law enforcement, government and the broader technology industry to combat the growth of cyber crimes, and we have successfully supported law enforcement in past prosecutions of hackers.