Potential data breach after hackers target Yorkshire housing company

A housing association in Yorkshire has not revealed whether hackers gained access to its customers’ personal information during a cyber attack.
By Nathan Hyde
Published 7th Apr 2022, 05:00 BST

South Yorkshire Housing Association said it alerted customers, South Yorkshire Police and the Information Commissioner's Office after the incident affected a number of its systems.

The company urged customers to take precautions, following the incident in October, and told them to follow Action Fraud’s advice on cyber crime protection.

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The housing association, which has more than 10,000 tenants, also conducted an internal investigation, but it has not released the findings or revealed whether personal data was compromised.

South Yorkshire Housing Association said it alerted customers and the police, following the cyber attack in OctoberSouth Yorkshire Housing Association said it alerted customers and the police, following the cyber attack in October
South Yorkshire Housing Association said it alerted customers and the police, following the cyber attack in October

The ICO said it had made enquiries and the people “have the right to expect that organisations will handle their personal information securely and responsibly”.

A South Yorkshire Housing Association spokesperson said: “With the help of external IT experts, we were able to safely recover our systems and ensure the incident was properly investigated.

“We take data protection very seriously.

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“As soon as we became aware of the incident, we informed the relevant authorities including the ICO, the UK's data protection authority. The ICO has subsequently closed its file.

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“We have taken all measures reasonably possible to ensure such an incident does not happen again.”

A number of housing providers have been targeted by cyber attacks in recent years.

Hackers gained access data held by Home Group on around 4,000 customers, including names, addresses and contact information in October 2019.

And customer and staff data held by Flagship Group, based in Norwich, was compromised in November 2020 following an attack which took most of the company’s systems offline.