Last month, the PageUp data breach created much discussion as it was a massive breach affecting several associated companies. Recently, a UK-based hotel and restaurant company Whitbread confirmed it was also affected by the cyber attack. Reportedly, the data breach exposed details of its current and prospective employees to hackers.
Whitbread Data Breach Exposed Employee Data
In an email to Irish Times, the officials confirmed and explained about the Whitbread data breach. According to that email, the online recruitment system of Whitbread suffered a data breach exposing sensitive details to hackers. The company has stored its data on PageUp’s systems. After PageUp hack, the hackers might also have accessed Whitbread’s data. The breach supposedly affects its entire brand, including Costa Coffee and Premier Inn which are both household names in the UK.
Whitbread advised in their email of a possible data breach of current and potential employees, they say the hackers may have accessed the data, and may potentially use it for identity theft.
The breached details might include contact information, biographical data, and employment details along with other information. They hence advise everyone to change their account passwords.
Whitbread Officials Apologize For The Data Breach
While talking to Computer Business Review, the Whitbread spokesperson refused to give an exact number of those affected.
Nonetheless, in their email to the Irish Times, the company apologizes for the incident.
“We choose our partner organisations very carefully and take every possible step to ensure your data is always kept secure. We value all our job applicants and we want to repeat that we are very sorry that this has happened.”
Furthermore, they also suspended the use of PageUp services after knowing the cyber attack.
Whitbread is a British coffee shop, hotel, and restaurant operating service based in Bedfordshire, UK. The company proudly states having 50,000 employees on its website. Though the firm brags about serving millions of customers in and outside the UK, the recent breach of data of its employees as well as job applicants poses a threat to its credibility.
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