AER LINGUS HAS rushed to assure current and former staff that their financial information has not been accessed after employee data was stolen through a third party service provider.

Zellis, a leading payroll company, said that eight of its customers had been impacted by a “global issue”, which may have exposed personal information including names and addresses, to hackers.

International Airlines Group (IAG), a group containing Aer Lingus and British Airways, was targeted as well as Boots and the BBC.

A statement released by Aer Lingus today read:

“Aer Lingus has been notified by a third-party service provider (Zellis – provider of HR and payroll support services) that they have experienced a cybersecurity incident, which has resulted in a disclosure of some of our current and former employee data.”

“However, it has been confirmed that no financial or bank details relating to Aer Lingus current or former employees were compromised in this incident.”

“It has also been confirmed that no phone contact details relating to Aer Lingus current or former employees were compromised.”

The airline said that the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) and the National Cyber Security Centre has been made aware of the cyber attack and that Aer Lingus was providing advice to its employees.

Aer Lingus added:

“All current employees have been impacted and a significant number of former employees have been impacted.”

“The affected data consists of; employee number, title, name, date of birth, address line 1, email address, start date and end date of employment, and in the majority of cases, PPS/Social Security numbers.”

British Airways, which has around 34,000 people employed in the UK, confirmed yesterday that it was one of the companies caught up in the cyber attack.

“We have notified those colleagues whose personal information has been compromised to provide support and advice,” a spokesman said.

British Airways suffered a data hack in 2018, when an attacker was believed to have potentially accessed the personal data of approximately 429,612 customers and staff.

It included the names, addresses, payment card numbers and the three digits on the back of cards of 77,000 customers, and card numbers only for 108,000 customers.

With reporting from PA