BBC pension cyber attack: Hackers steal personal data of more than 25,000 current and former staff

Hackers have stolen the personal data of more than 25,000 former and current BBC staff in a cyber attack.

Names, addresses and National Insurance numbers were exposed when a cloud storage service for the corporation's pension scheme was targeted this month.

The broadcaster's pension scheme wrote to those affected by the breach on Wednesday, stating the corporation was taking the attack 'extremely seriously'.

It is not clear who was behind the cyber attack, but insiders said it was not believed to have involved ransomware.

Members of the scheme were urged to be vigilant for unusual activity, including unexpected phone calls, texts and emails.

The broadcaster's pension scheme wrote to those affected by the breach on Wednesday, stating the corporation was taking the attack 'extremely seriously'

It is not clear who was behind the cyber attack, but insiders said it was not believed to have involved ransomware

A spokesman for the BBC pension scheme confirmed that no passwords, bank details or email addresses had been compromised in the breach.

The BBC and the pension scheme have both opened investigations into the data breach.

The pension scheme spokesman said: 'We sincerely apologise to members affected and appreciate this will be concerning. We want to reassure members that the BBC has responded quickly and that the source of the incident has been secured.'

The BBC pension scheme is one of the largest in the UK, with more than 50,000 members.

It comes after a swathe of ransomware attacks in Britain, including a previous attempt on the BBC last year by Russians.