34,000 Butlins guests warned of risk from hackers stealing data
UP to 34,000 guests’ records may have been hacked, holiday camp chain Butlins has admitted.
The data at risk includes names, home and email addresses as well as telephone numbers.
But Butlins insisted that “no financial data has been compromised”.
It is contacting people who may have been affected to let them know what happened and what they should do.
Butlins managing director Dermot King said: “Butlins take the security of our guest data very seriously and have improved a number of our security processes.
“I would like to apologise for any upset or inconvenience this incident might cause.”
He added: “A dedicated team has been set up to contact all guests who may be affected directly.
“I would like to personally reassure guests that no financial data has been compromised.”
The incident has been reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office. An expert in the field, lawyer Jocelyn Paulley, of Gowling WLG, said: “This breach was the result of a phishing email, demonstrating the crucial need to train staff so they can recognise increasingly sophisticated communications that purport to be genuine.”
Ms Paulley added that human error was the “greatest single point of weakness” in security.
Butlins have camp sites at Skegness in Lincolnshire, Bognor Regis in West Sussex and Minehead in Somerset.