Nokia flaw leaves your personal details online

Nokia has admitted that private customer information was left exposed online to be freely seen by others.

The mobile phone giant blamed the popularity of its new "dirty bath water" advertisement for leaving it in hot water.

One customer new to Nokia told silicon.com he was shocked to see another 'Club Nokia' member's name, email address, phone number, SIM card ID number, phone identification number and password when he signed up yesterday.

"There's a serious security flaw at Club Nokia," he said. "I was trying to register for club membership when a page came up with someone else's details."

He hadn't seen the credit card details of the other user, but was still sufficiently concerned to phone the helpline.

Reporting the fault, he was shocked to be told by the helpdesk operator that she had another member on the other line reporting the same thing. This other complainant had seen the details of another member living in Portugal.

A Nokia spokesman claimed that while there had been reports of other problems with the site from new sign-ups there had only been "two or three" complaints of the serious nature experienced by these two users.

Mark Squires, senior manager communications at Nokia, said: "We'll hold our hands up to this one. We've had an advertising campaign running this week that has caused an unprecedented number of people to sign up with Club Nokia.

"During the peak, a bug emerged. As more than one person tried to register at the same time the system gave out the same Club Nokia membership number to more than one person.

"The bug had started to occur on Wednesday, but was resolved on Thursday," he added.

The problem was compounded by a promotion for users of the new Nokia 3330 handset.

By Andy Favell