NORTH CAROLINA -- Duke Energy has announced that some of its customers may have had their personal information stolen.

According to a release by the company, customers who have paid their bills at one of the state's 550 walk-in payment processing centers between 2008 and 2017 may be affected by a potential compromise of personally identifiable information, according to PayPal Holdings, who recently acquired TIO Networks.

TIO Networks is the company that owns the network used to process payments made at those locations. 

The company will soon begin notifying anyone whose information they believe may have been compromised, including approximately 374,000 Duke Energy Carolinas customers. These notifications will come in the form of letters sent through the post.

In a statement, the VP of Revenue Services for Duke Energy, Lesley Quick, said "This TIO Networks issue has possibly and unfortunately affected some of our customers, and we are doing all we can to help. We have remained in daily contact with our vendor since they abruptly and unexpectedly disabled their network on Nov. 10 for suspected 'security vulnerabilities.'"

Duke Energy Carolinas customers can continue to make payments in person at Western Union locations, or can pay by check, debit or credit card online at www.duke-energy.com or by calling 800-777-9898, select option 2 for "billing and payments," then option 1 to make a payment.

Customers who believe they may be impacted or have questions should visit http://tionetworks.com.