Hacking costs TalkTalk up to £35m

TELECOMS company TalkTalk says last month’s hacking breach will cost the company between £30m and £35m.

Chief executive Dido Harding assessed the damage of the cyber attack in the interim report on six months trading to September 30.

The losses will be from online sales and service capability associated with the attack, she said.

Despite that bad news, the Warrington-based company, which will move to the former Soapworks building in Salford Quays in 2017,reported total revenue up 4.7% to £912m (H1 FY15: £871m).

However, headline EBITDA was down to £90m (H1 FY15: £110m).

Harding added: “We have delivered H1 results in line with our plan and revenue growth accelerated strongly through the second quarter.

“We have a robust plan to deliver a significant step-up in profits in H2, underpinned by the benefits of our transformation programme coming through strongly.

“We have recently been able to confirm that far fewer people were impacted by the cyber attack than originally feared.
 
“However, TalkTalk takes the security of customers’ data extremely seriously and we are taking significant further steps to ensure our systems are protected, as well as writing to all our customers outlining what we are doing to keep their data safe.

“In recognition of the unavoidable uncertainty, and because we know that doing what is right for our customers will ensure the best possible outcome for the company over the longer term, we are today announcing the offer of a choice of free upgraded services to all our customers.”

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