BRITISH RETAILER DIXONS Carphone has not yet determined whether any Irish customers have been affected by a major cyber attack that attempted to compromise 5.9 million customer payment cards.

In Ireland, Dixons Carphone operates Currys PC World and the Carphone Warehouse.

Dixons Carphone announced today that an investigation indicates that there was an attempt to compromise 5.9 million cards in one of the processing systems of Currys PC World and Dixons Travel stores.

However, it said that while 5.8 million of the cards had chip and pin protection, about 105,000 non-EU issued payment cards without such safeguards had been compromised.

“As part of a review of our systems and data, we have determined that there has been unauthorised access to certain data held by the company,” the group Dixons Carphone said in a statement.

“We promptly launched an investigation, engaged leading cyber security experts and added extra security measures to our systems. We have taken action to close off this access and have no evidence it is continuing.”

In a statement to TheJournal.ie, a spokesperson for Dixons Carphone in the UK said: “In terms of the potential Irish customers being affected, the investigation is ongoing and we hope to update you ASAP when we have an update.”

In its general statement, the company said that there was no evidence of “any fraudulent use of the data”, adding that it had informed the police and relevant UK watchdogs.

“Separately, our investigation has also found that 1.2 million records containing non-financial personal data, such as name, address or email address, have been accessed.

“We have no evidence that this information has left our systems or has resulted in any fraud at this stage,” the statement said.

Apologising for the situation, Dixons Carphone chief executive Alex Baldock, said the group had shut down the unauthorised access.

“Cybercrime is a continual battle for business today and we are determined to tackle this fast-changing challenge,” he added.

© – AFP 2018 with reporting by Hayley Halpin