CANBERRA, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Personal information of thousands of Australians has been stolen by hackers who have raided a U.S.- based marketing firm, Epsilon, Australia's media reported on Thursday.
Epsilon acknowledged that "sophisticated cyber thieves" had gained access to the company's email system last week.
Among the banking and financial firms that have notified customers of the breach are Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, U.S Bank, Barclays Bank of Delaware and Ameriprise Financial.
According to The Australian newspaper, Dell Australia has been the only Australia's company to admit customer data was compromised when hackers hit Epsilon.
In a statement, Dell assured its customers that credit card, banking and other personally-identifiable information was not at risk and remained secure.
According to Australian Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim, Dell had informed him of the data breach.
"Dell Australia have also advised all of its customers affected by the data breach and have set up an advice service that those customers can use to obtain further information if needed," Pilgrim said in a statement released on Thursday.
The Australian commissioner has launched an investigation into the incident.
He said that Epsilon has also commenced an investigation into this matter and is keeping Dell Australia informed.
Epsilon claims to be the world's largest permission-based email marketing provider, sending over 40 billion emails annual on behalf of more than 2,500 clients.
Computer security experts claimed it was one of the largest data thefts in U.S. history.
