BBC hit by major cyber attack as urgent investigation launched

The data of thousands of thousands of staff members has been stolen with information such as names, addresses, national insurance numbers and banking details breached.

Employees at British Airways and the retailer Boots have also been taken.

The hack came after malicious actors targeted the payroll provider Zellis.

On top of THE BBC, BA and Boots, Zellis has high profile clients such as the NHS and Jaguar Land Rover.

A BBC spokesman said: "We are aware of a data breach at our third party supplier, Zellis, and are working closely with them as they urgently investigate the extent of the breach.

"We take data security extremely seriously and are following the established reporting procedures."

It is not thought any customer data has been impacted by the breach.

A spokesman for Zellis said: “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.

“We have also notified the ICO, DPC, and the NCSC in both the UK and Ireland.

“We employ robust security processes across all of our services and they all continue to run as normal.”

The Information Commissioner’s Office said that it has been made aware of the incident.

It said it was assessing the information provided by Zellis and would act accordingly.