Ireland

Gardaí investigating cyber attack on Fastway Couriers

A cyber attack on Fastway Couriers targeted the personal details of hundreds of thousands of clients
A cyber attack on Fastway Couriers targeted the personal details of hundreds of thousands of clients A cyber attack on Fastway Couriers targeted the personal details of hundreds of thousands of clients

GARDAÍ are investigating a cyber attack on a courier company which targeted the personal details of hundreds of thousands of clients.

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has also begun an investigation after Fastway Coueriers informed it of the data breach.

It happened on February 24 while the company was carrying out a maintenance update on a database server.

The breach involves names, addresses, email accounts and phone numbers of of 446,143 parcel receivers.

No financial information or passwords were exposed.

A Garda spokesman said they were informed of the attack on March 12.

"Enquiries into this incident are now underway," he said.

Graham Doyle, Deputy Data Commissioner, said it has asked the company for more details.

“We have forwarded a series of questions to Fastway to determine what exactly took place. We are in the assessment phase and this will inform the course of our enquiry,” he said.

A Fastway spokesman said it has engaged an IT consultancy to review the cyber-attack.

"Fastway has also notified the Data Protection Commissioner and An Garda Síochána and is assisting both in progressing their respective enquiries into this cyber-attack. In the interim, Fastway is engaging with its clients and their customers."

The company said last week that the cyber-attack was identified by Fastway’s third-party IT development contractor on February 25 and was "fully mitigated" by 9am on February 26.

"The third-party contractor advised Fastway of the breach on March 2," Fastway said.