Samsung has issued a warning to its customers after they were targeted by a massive data breach which may have exposed private information.

The tech giant identified a data breach on November 13.

Samsung said hackers had gained access through an application used by the company.

They have warned anyone who bought a product from Samsung UK’s web store between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020, that their personal data, including names, addresses, phone numbers and emails may have been leaked.

However, Samsung confirmed that payment details and other financial information was unaffected by the breach.

Warning to Samsung customers

In a warning to customers, Samsung said: “Based on our investigation, we have identified that the affected data may have included your name, phone number, address and email address.

"We want to assure you that the issue did not impact your password or financial information."

In a statement to Bleeping Computer, Samsung added: "We were recently alerted to a cybersecurity incident, which resulted in certain contact information of some Samsung UK e-store customers being unlawfully obtained.

"No financial data, such as bank or credit card details, or customer passwords, were impacted. The incident is limited to the UK and does not affect US customers, employees or retailer data."

Apple iPhone warning

Meanwhile, Apple iPhone users have been warned of a hidden setting that could be deleting apps from their phone.

Some iOS users might be aware of a function in Settings that allows you to uninstall apps you don't use very often.

However, not many people realise that there is another setting that if enabled, will delete unused apps by default.

Inside the settings app, it's possible to find out which apps have been offloaded and re-install them on your phone if desired.

To find and restore offloaded apps, go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage and scroll down the list of apps. Then, look for apps with an iCloud icon next to their name.

To reinstall an app that has been removed, tap on its icon.

To prevent any more apps from being deleted in future, you can disable app offloading functionality.

To disable automatic app offloading, go to Settings > App Store and toggle the Offload Unused Apps switch to off.