British broadband provider TalkTalk said yesterday it had hired defence company BAE Systems to investigate a cyberattack that may have led to the theft of personal data from its more than 4 million customers.

TalkTalk said on Friday it had received a ransom demand from an unidentified party for the attack, which has led to calls for greater regulation of how companies and public bodies manage personal data.

A spokeswoman for BAE’s Applied Intelligence division said the firm’s cyberspecialists were analysing “vast quantities” of data to establish how the breach happened and what information was stolen.

While TalkTalk said on Saturday it did not believe the information accessed would enable hackers to steal money from its customers, British newspapers on Sunday carried stories of individuals who said callers posing as TalkTalk employees had taken money from their bank accounts.– (Reuters)