News

One of Europe’s largest tackle retailers, Angling Direct, is still suffering the effects of a major cyber security attack, which downed its website on Friday.

The UK-based giant, which has stores acros the country as well as – usually – a huge online presence – first detected unauhtorised activity on its network late on Firday, December 5th, shutting down its website. The hackers also posted threats on its Twitter account and suggested it had been sold to a company that runs one of the world’s largest pornographic websites.

In a statement to the UK’ Stock Exchange, the company said: “This unauthorised activity shut down the company's websites and these remain inactive. Some of the company's social media accounts have also been compromised. The board has appointed external cyber security specialists whose investigations are underway to establish what happened. Work continues round the clock to bring the websites back online while our 39 retail stores across the UK have remained open and continue to trade.

“As a precaution, the company has notified the relevant regulators and law enforcement agencies, including the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK. We are mindful of our obligations regarding data; it is too soon yet to make any determination around the impact on personal data, but we will inform any individuals in line with our regulatory obligations should there be a need to do so. Importantly, the company does not hold any customer financial data as our website transactions are handled by third parties.

“As matters currently stand, the board does not anticipate that this incident will have a detrimental impact on underlying trading and the company will continue to assess any cost exposure that this incident may create. The Board will provide a further update as and when appropriate and apologises for any disruption that has been caused to customers by this incident.”