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Staff at Arup have had personal details, which is said to include bank details, names and addresses, stolen after the engineering firm’s external payroll supplier was hit by a cyber attack. Symatrix, which is contracted to handle the payroll for Arup’s 6,000 UK staff, was hit by a cyber attack in mid-January. It has not been disclosed how many staff may have been affected by the data breach.
The engineering firm was informed of the leak on 11 March, with the Information Commissioner’s Office also informed of the data breach. It is understood that the data stolen includes
Symantix has been contacted to clarify what personal data has been accessed and how many staff were affected.
It appears that Arup staff were informed that the payroll provider was the victim of a ransomware attack, meaning the files which were stolen, copied and encrypted, before being held to ransom in order to access the data. Arup have stated
“We have been informed about a data incident impacting our payroll provider Symatrix and we are working closely with them to establish the extent to which our staff have been affected. Our commitment to data security remains a priority and we are working at pace to resolve the issue.”
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Arup employees are now being asked to monitor their banks and email to ensure that their personal information is not being used by cyber criminals. The payroll provider to the construction giant Arup, Symatrix stated
“We can confirm that the Symatrix internal network was the target of a cyber attack on 12 January. Our IT experts took immediate steps to contain the incident, including shutting off our internal servers, and engaged a dedicated team of IT forensic experts to conduct a thorough investigation. We notified the Information Commissioner’s Office and the police via Action Fraud, and kept customers regularly updated on the investigation progress."
We have seen time and time again how cyber criminals are becoming more sophisticated in the way they access personal, sensitive information and how they go about using this data. Our advice is to make contact with your payroll provider and see exactly what information has been taken. You can then plan to protect yourself and inform your bank and remain extra vigilant.
If you have been affected by a data breach and need advice then you can contact our data breach experts at Evans Hughes for free impartial advice.
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