TalkTalk exec’s ’embarrassment’ over hacking
TALKTALK executive Dr Neil McArthur has spoken of his embarrassment and disappointment at the telecoms company’s hacking breach, which caused widespread panic among the millions of customers.
McArthur sold his North West business Opal Telecom to Talk Talk’s former parent Carphone Warehouse in 2002, and although now semi-retired is still TalkTalk’s head of group innovation. He described the situation as “disappointing and unfortunate”.
He told TheBusinessDesk: “At one point I ran the technology division, so I have a fairly good idea of the situation.
“We do huge amounts on security, but we clearly haven’t done enough in the right direction. There will always be more to be done.”
The company, which has sites in Warrington and Irlam, has revealed that the hackers gained access to about 21,000 bank account numbers and sort codes, 28,000 credit and debit cards, and 15,000 dates of birth.
The company, one of the largest broadband providers, said the stolen payment card numbers were incomplete (six middle digits are blanked out), which means fraudsters cannot use the information directly to steal money from bank accounts.
TalkTalk also reported that the attackers accessed the names, email addresses and phone numbers of less than 1.2 million customers. The data has been reportedly sold on cybercrime forums.
McArthur continued: “In truth, we felt it was the right thing to do to inform people quickly and early, before we really knew the extent of it. But the alternative was to waste days, understanding the extent of it and then be accused of not informing people early enough.”
Alluding the BBC Newsnight interview in which TalkTalk chief executive Dido Harding struggled to answer questions over the hacking, he said: “Whilst you might have seen the CEO struggling to answer questions on the first day, that’s because we weren’t able to give here the information she needed.
“But at least we were able to tell the customers be vigilant. The reality is we have over reacted. The amount of data we’ve lost is nothing like as serious as we thought it might be at first, which is good.
“But equally, it’s embarrassing that we’ve not done a better job on security and no doubt we’ll get better. They didn’t get into our core systems, but they got further than they should’ve been able to.
“For that we’re very sorry and we’ll put it right. We don’t believe any customers have lost any money.
“But that’s not the point, they’re given us data on trust and that has been breached in certain areas and it must not happen again. We will get better, but it’s tremendously disappointing.”
McArthur was speaking before addressing an event at Manchester University where digital leaders from the home of technology, Silicon Valley, were attending to help launch an initiative called the Manchester Tech Trust.
The not-for-profit organisation has been formed by a group of entrepreneurs and investors led by McArthur. Manchester Tech Trust (MTT) aims to support, highlighlight and improve Manchester’s technology sector through better connectivity between businesses, funders and policy makers.
