TalkTalk said it was hit by a signicant and sustained cyber attack that potentially compromised all of its customers’ private data. The affected information includes users’ names, date of birth, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, TalkTalk account information, credit card details and/or bank details. The Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit launched a criminal investigation into the hack on 22 October. TalkTalk is continuing to work with cyber crime specialists and the Metropolitan Police to establish exactly what happened and the extent of any information accessed. The company currently has over 4 million customers.
CEO Dido Harding told BBC News that the attack occurred on 21 October and that the company took just over 24 hours to put its webmail service back online. Broadband, internet, TV and mobile services were unaffected. The sales site is still down and the functionality for customers to check their bill is expected to be back online on 23 October. She added that TalkTalk will provide a year’s free credit history monitoring to all affected customers in compensation.
In a press statement Harding said, "TalkTalk constantly updates its systems to make sure they are as secure as possible against the rapidly evolving threat of cyber crime, impacting an increasing number of individuals and organisations. We take any threat to the security of our customers' data extremely seriously and we are taking all the necessary steps to understand what has happened here. As a precaution, we are contacting all our customers straight away with information, support and advice around yesterday's attack."
The BBC reports that this is the third cyber attack to hit TalkTalk in the last year. In February the operator warned customers of scammers who had stolen thousands of account numbers and names, and in August personal data was breached when its mobile sales site was attacked.
