Irish online shoppers affected by a cyber attack targeting Fastway Couriers are being told to change their passwords.
The company has confirmed that names, addresses, email accounts and phone numbers of 446,143 people were accessed during the hack, which is believed to have happened in January.
Fastway CEO Danny Hughes has apologised to clients and customers, adding that “nobody’s financial data was at risk”.
All the information is linked to deliveries that were due to take place over a 30-day period from mid-January onwards.
The Data Protection Commission has been alerted, and it is now investigating the hack.
Newstalk's Jess Kelly spoke to Newstalk Breakfast about what exactly happened.
She said: “The good news - if there is good news - is that Fastway actually anonymizes data after 30 days, so it’s only a specific 30-day period that we’re talking about here.
“The reason there are so many people impacted by this is of course that many people have been engaging with online shopping more recently, and Fastway is the partner for many firms."
Many people will be hearing directly from online stores rather than Fastway themselves, as the couriers often deal with companies directly.
Littlewoods customers were some of the first to be alerted of the hack.
Jess says the incident is a 'significant breach and significant headache', but the best action for now is to simply change your password.
She said: “What you need to do, if you’ve received notification, is just go and change your passwords on any accounts that may have been compromised.
“There was no financial information taken, and your date of birth wasn’t taken - it was just the information you’d see on a tracking label."
