Accounting software outfit Sage Group has been hit by a data breach affecting between 200 and 300 of its customers.
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Sage, one of Britain’s largest technology companies, says it has more than 6 million small and medium-sized businesses using its software worldwide. De Vere, who said he had talked with Sage about the incident, said the company confirmed that an employee caused the breach. It is unknown whether the unauthorized access was simply to view personal data or whether any data has been copied.
The Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday that a breach at Sage may have exposed personal and salary as well as bank account details for employees of as many as 300 United Kingdom companies.
A statement on the company’s website says: ‘We believe there has been some unauthorised access using an internal login to the data of a small number of our United Kingdom customers so we are working closely with the authorities to investigate the situation.
The company is working with law enforcement and the UK’s data protection agency, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), is aware of the situation. In a recent study conducted by the Ponemon Institute, rising data loss is often caused by insiders and compromised employee accounts.
A Sage spokeswoman said: “We can not comment further whilst we work with the authorities to investigate, but our customers remain our first priority…”
It is understood the information was accessed at some point over the past few weeks.
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Because of the nature of the breach, the company has drafted in the police to help it investigate how the breach took place, saying it is a distinct possibility an unauthorised person used an internal computer login to break into the system.
