Sage, which provides accounting, payroll and payments software for businesses, has released a statement saying that an internal login had been used to gain unauthorised access to the data of some of its British customers.
The personal details of the employees of about 280 British companies were potentially exposed in the breach, a company source said. “We are investigating unauthorised access to customer information using an internal login,” the company said in a statement.
“We cannot comment further whilst we work with the authorities to investigate but our customers remain our first priority and we are speaking directly with those affected,” it added.
Sage, one of Britain’s largest technology companies, said it has more than 6m small and medium-sized businesses using its software worldwide. It operates in 23 countries but this incident is said to have only had a possible impact on customers in the UK.
The company said last month it was confident its revenue would increase by at least 6% in the current year ending next month, continuing a pace set in the six months to the end of March, when revenue rose 6% to £747m.
The Information Commissioner’s Office, which enforces the Data Protection Act, has been informed and the incident reported to the City of London police.
Last year almost 157,000 TalkTalk customers had their personal details hacked in a cyber-attack on the telecoms company. The hacking attack took place on 21 October and the company later admitted it had lost 101,000 customers and suffered costs of £60m as a result.
