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In April, Charter Communications suffered a data breach via the hacking group ShinyHunters. The company recently confirmed that the breach occurred, but has been insistent that no sensitive information was taken.
Charter is a large broadband provider that includes the Spectrum brand, which serves millions of customers across the entire United States.
The company confirmed the breach to Tom's Guide and said it launched protocols and alerted authorities about the incident. Charter said that no sensitive personal or business information was stolen.
"We are aware of the situation, following our security protocols and are working with appropriate authorities," a Charter spokesperson said. "No sensitive personal information (PI) or customer proprietary network information (CPNI) data was exfiltrated by the threat actor as a result of recent activity."
Contradictory statements
Charter's statement on the matter does seem to contradict statements from the ShinyHunters hacking group. The group claims that it stole 40 million records containing the personal information of home and business customers.
The group reportedly told BleepingComputer that it breached Charter on April 1 through a voice phishing attack that was used to compromise an employee account.
ShinyHunters claims the data includes customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, plan information and some CPNI data. The group also said it had some support ticket data.
ShinyHunters is on a tear
The threat actor ShinyHunters has been active since 2019, but in 2026 alone, we've tracked at least three separate data breaches claimed by the group. And there have been others targeting business users and not consumers, like Salesforce, that we haven't covered.
The first one we covered was a Panera breach in February that exposed information for more than 5 million customers. The identity protection company Aura suffered a nearly 1 million-person data breach in March that exposed customer information.
And just last month, the security company ADT was hit by a breach that affected 5.5 million customers, who saw stolen information leaked online.
How to stay safe after a data breach
It's not clear how much sensitive customer data was actually stolen. With that in mind, these tips are meant to help you protect yourself if sensitive information was stolen and to protect yourself before it gets stolen.
Usually, a company sends out data breach notification letters to affected individuals. In the meantime though, consider signing up for one of the best identity theft protection services as they can help you recover your identity if it's stolen and any funds lost to scams too.
Keep a close eye on your mailbox for any data breach letters. If Charter doesn't pay a ransom or if it does, keep an eye on your inbox. Hackers could use the stolen info to launch targeted phishing attacks.
These phishing emails could contain malicious links or malware. So keep you PC protected with the best antivirus software and your Apple computer with the best Mac antivirus software.
ShinyHunters seems like it will continue hacking major companies, so more data breaches are likely in the future. Every company should be taking the threat posed by this group seriously.
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