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The
firm said late on Thursday that investigations were ongoing, but
there was a chance names, addresses, dates of birth, phone
numbers, email addresses, TalkTalk account details, credit card
details and/or bank details were compromised.
"Potentially this could affect all of our customers. I don't
know for certain, which is why we are taking the precaution of
reaching out to everyone," CEO Dido Harding told the BBC.
The attack is potentially one of the biggest and most damaging
to hit a British company, and comes after several high profile
cases in North America. The details of millions of customers of
infidelity website Ashley Madison were leaked in August after a
massive cyber assault, while Sony Corp's film studios were hit
in November 2014.
The attack is the third to hit TalkTalk this year, and experts
said it would damage the reputation of the company, which
competes with bigger rivals BT, Virgin Media and Sky.
"Their brand will be damaged and their customers will say it is
the final straw," said computer security expert Graham Cluley.
Shares in TalkTalk, which had fallen 7 percent since the group's
websites went down on Wednesday, fell another 8.5 percent on
Friday morning to a two-year low of 238 pence.
Some customers took to Twitter to vent their anger.
"I see #talktalk has been hacked again, seriously need to go to
another provider, especially as I find out via BBC and not
TalkTalk," said Cardiff-based user Lan.
The Metropolitan Police said its cyber crime unit was
investigating an alleged data theft from a telecommunications
website, without giving details.
Personal data including names, addresses and phone numbers were
stolen from TalkTalk at the start of the year, and in August
servers owned by Carphone Warehouse, the retailer which founded
TalkTalk, were attacked, potentially affecting 480,000 TalkTalk
mobile customers.
A spokeswoman said Wednesday's attack was the first time
TalkTalk's own servers had been subjected to a sustained
external attack.
(Editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter)
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