West of Scotland ferry workers are among the 800 victims of a data breach after hackers accessed Stena Line employees’ personal and banking data.

The Scandinavian ferry operator discovered that its UK workers’ data had been compromised last week by cybercriminals who breached its systems via scam emails.

Stena Line said that the data was stolen from sea-faring staff who work on the North and Irish Seas, and that customer data was unaffected.

Compromised

A Stena Line spokesperson said: “On 3rd September 2018 a company within Stena discovered that two email accounts had been compromised via a phishing attack. The result of which is that, unknown to us at the time, personally identifiable information was transferred to an external third party.”

The company said that initial assessments indicate that personal and payroll data is amongst the data compromised, although its investigations are still ongoing.

The spokesperson added: “The affected employees have been informed. The Company has also made itself available for questions from employees and will provide support to them if needed. A notification has also been made to the data protection authorities in relation to the incident.”

Stena Line said it takes its responsibility to safeguard its employee’s personal information “very seriously” as it does with all the data it holds about its customers and suppliers.

The company spokesperson continued: “We sincerely regret that this incident has taken place. We are taking steps, with advice from cybersecurity experts, to enhance our systems and processes in a way which will further protect and secure our employees data as well as that of our customers and counter-parties in order to minimise the risk of similar incidents happening in future.

“A support line has been established to enable employees to communicate directly with Stena Line about this incident.”