Orange Belgium Hacked - Customer Data Stolen

Uploaded on 2025-08-21 in NEWS-Cybersecurity News, FREE TO VIEW, BUSINESS-Services-IT & Telecoms

Orange Belgium, a subsidiary of telecommunications giant Orange Group, has disclosed that the personal data of around 850,000 Belgian customers have been hacked by criminals using the French telecoms operator Orange on Wednesday 20th August.

The telecoms company said it identified the incident in late July, and it immediately activated its response plan and notified the relevant authorities.

Orange, which serves more than 290 million customers globally, has warned that some services could be affected by its response to the incident, though it did not disclose the precise nature of the attack.

In an email sent to affected customers at Orange Belgium it said hackers had gained access to names, telephone numbers, SIM card details, tariff plans and the Personal Unlocking Key (PUK) codes of users.Confusingly, Orange says the no passwords, email addresses or financial information had been stolen.

A ransomware group named WarLock has claimed to have stolen data from Orange. Some of the files made public by the hackers suggest that the compromised data relates to customers in France.

Orange's handling of the incident was met with sharp criticism from some of Belgium's cyber security community
In a LinkedIn message, Inti De Ceukelaire, chief hacker at Belgian bug-bounty platform Intigriti, called the company’s response “very disappointing,” accusing Orange of following “the same old corporate PR playbook” to protect its brand rather than its customers. De Ceukelaire warned that the dedicated information page published by Orange downplayed the real risks, such as SIM swapping and number theft, while shifting the burden onto users to guard against phishing.

Orange, one of the biggest mobile service providers in both Europe and Africa, announced in March that it had suffered a cyber attack affecting users in Romania.

This latest breach comes as European regulators and telecoms operators step up scrutiny of cyber security standards amid a rise in large-scale data leaks targeting critical infrastructure.

Image: @OrangeBEFR

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