Hackers send TalkTalk ransom demand

The seventh largest UK telecom company TalkTalk said it had received a ransom demand from an individual or group claiming responsibility for a cyber-attack on Wednesday that may have compromised the credit card and bank details of millions of customers.

According to the telecommunications and media firm, it did not know how many of its 4 million customers had been affected in what it termed ''significant and sustained'' attack on its systems.

A TalkTalk spokeswoman said, ''We can confirm we were contacted by someone claiming to be responsible and seeking payment.''

Declining to elaborate further, she said ''everything else is a matter for the police''.

TalkTalk's chief executive, Dido Harding, told the BBC yesterday, ''Yes, we have been contacted by – I don't know whether it's an individual or a group – purporting to be the hacker.

''I personally received a contact from someone purporting – as I say, I don't know whether they are or are not – to be the hacker, looking for money.''

TalkTalk shares plummeted over 10 per cent in late afternoon trades on Friday, over concerns of the financial impact of the cyber-attack among investors.

A spokesman for Scotland Yard's cyber crime unit, which is investigating the data breach, said, "We are aware of this information and it will form part of our investigation."

Reports say some TalkTalk customers had complained of their bank accounts and credit cards having been targeted.

According to Harding, the company had assumed a worst case scenario that all the personal data relating to its 4 million customers was compromised until they could confirm exactly what was taken.

Talk Talk added it was investigating whether personal details of past had also been  taken.

Baroness Harding told the Press Association (PA), "We have taken the precaution to assume the worst case, which is that all of our customers' personal financial information has been accessed.

"We think that is the most prudent and sensible way to be, to tell all of our customers that now, so that they can protect themselves rather than wait to do the analysis and give a more precise number and cause more concern to people over the long term."

A TalkTalk spokeswoman told PA that its investigation into what had been stolen includes a database of past customers, saying, "We are running the data, we just don't know at the moment."