Qatar National Bank Data Breach

What happened

In July 2015, the Qatar National Bank suffered a data breach which exposed 15k documents totalling 1.4GB and detailing more than 100k accounts with passwords and PINs. The incident was made public some 9 months later in April 2016 when the documents appeared publicly on a file sharing site. Analysis of the breached data suggests the attack began by exploiting a SQL injection flaw in the bank's website.

Exposed data

Recommended actions

• Change your Qatar National Bank password immediately, and update it anywhere you reused the same password.
• Enable two-factor authentication on the affected account and on your critical services (email, banking).
• Monitor your bank and card statements closely and consider requesting a card replacement.
• Stay alert for smishing (SMS phishing) and SIM-swap attempts using your phone number.
• Exposed identity data raises identity-theft risk — consider credit monitoring or a credit freeze.