Now WH Smith is hit by cyber hackers

WH SMITH has been hit by a cyber attack that saw hackers gain access to employee data.

But the high street chain said that customer accounts were not affected and its website was operating as normal.

The breach, which happened ear - lier this week, follows two other highprofile attacks on firms already this year – Royal Mail and JD Sports.

Experts warned the retail industry was at a higher risk of cyber attack because of the large amount of data it held on customers and employees.

Shops were also more sensitive to reputational risk which makes them even more attractive to cybercrimi - nals looking to ransom them. Mal - ware attacks in retail rose by 159 per cent last year , according to cyber security firm SonicWall.

WH Smith, which has 10,000 employees, said it did not know how many of its current and former staff had been affected. Data that might have been breached included names, addresses, national insurance num - bers and dates of birth.

The retailer said it took ‘the issue of cyber security extremely seriously’ and investigations into the incident were continuing.