Axel Springer hit by new German data leak scandal

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The personal details of thousands of people who placed classified advertisements in newspapers owned by Axel Springer made their way onto the Internet in the latest data leak scandal to hit Germany.

A company spokeswoman confirmed a report in the magazine Der Spiegel that the names, addresses, mobile phone numbers and bank account details for customers of the free weekly papers could be viewed online before the leak was plugged last month.

The Springer spokeswoman called the incident -- caused by an outside programming contractor -- regrettable but added the company's larger newspapers were not affected.

Deutsche Telekom had acknowledged this month that thieves hijacked sensitive data on millions of mobile phone customers in the company's second major security scandal this year.

(Reporting by Kathrin Schich; Editing by Jon Boyle)