British Airways has become of the companies affected by a cyber security attack, which has compromised payroll data for the carrier’s UK-based staff.
The clients of payroll specialist Zellis, including BA, have been affected after hackers attacked third-party file transfer company MOVEit.
“We have been informed that we are one of the companies impacted by Zellis’ cybersecurity incident which occurred via one of their third-party suppliers called MOVEit," said BA in a statement issued on Monday (5 June).
“Zellis provides payroll support services to hundreds of companies in the UK, of which we are one.
"This incident happened because of a new and previously unknown vulnerability in a widely used MOVEit file transfer tool. We have notified those colleagues whose personal information has been compromised to provide support and advice."
The data breach has also affected over major UK-based firms, including high street pharmacy chain Boots.
Zellis said in a statement: “We can confirm that a small number of our customers have been impacted by this global issue and we are actively working to support them.
“All Zellis-owned software is unaffected and there are no associated incidents or compromises to any other part of our IT estate.
"Once we became aware of this incident we took immediate action, disconnecting the server that utilises MOVEit software and engaging an expert external security incident response team to assist with forensic analysis and ongoing monitoring.”