Equifax admits breach of data

Around 400,000 people in the UK may have had their information stolen following a cyber security breach at credit monitoring firm Equifax.

The US company said a file containing UK consumer information “may potentially have been accessed”. It includes names, dates of birth, e-mail addresses and phone numbers, but not postal addresses, passwords or financial information.

Equifax discovered the hack in July. To provide reassurance, it said it was unlikely people would be hit by “identity takeover”.

It will contact them in writing to offer advice and a free identity protection service monitoring their personal information and data.

Equifax alerted the public to the cyber attack on September 7. The data of 143million people was breached in America. Equifax said the information of British consumers may have been accessed because of a process failure in 2016 which saw a “limited amount” of UK data stored on the American system between 2011 and 2016.