TalkTalk cyber attack: Hackers 'can't raid bank accounts'

"We now expect the amount of financial information that may have been accessed to be materially lower than initially believed and would on its own not enable a criminal to take money from your account," a spokesman added.

TalkTalk chief executive Dido Harding insisted customer bank details have not been compromised.

"The financial information they have on its own is not enough for them to access your bank account," she told Sky News.

She later said it was not yet known whether former TalkTalk customers have been affected.

"I don't yet know exactly how many and which of our customers' bank account numbers and sort codes have been stolen," she said.

Baroness Harding warned customers never to give out financial details if they are contacted by phone or email by anyone asking for personal information.

"TalkTalk will never call you and ask you over the phone to give your personal financial information, we will never call you out of the blue and ask you to give us access to your computer.

"Those are criminals doing that and we all need to make sure that we don't let them win," she added.

All TalkTalk customers are being offered free credit monitoring as they could be at risk from fraudsters using stolen details to impersonate them.

“We expect that any affected TalkTalk customers who want to leave their contract should be able to do so without penalty," Which? response to latest TalkTalk data breach.

The consumer watchdog Which? said any affected TalkTalk customers who want to leave their contract should be able to do so without penalty.

Which? executive director, Richard Lloyd, said: "This data breach will worry TalkTalk customers and it's critical that the company now does all that it can to ensure people get clear information about what's happening and how they can protect themselves. 

"Nobody should lose out as a result of this breach, so TalkTalk should also look at what more it needs to do for its customers, including appropriate compensation for those affected. It's important people are treated fairly so we expect that any affected TalkTalk customers who want to leave their contract should be able to do so without penalty."

Ms Harding said on Friday: "Waiving standard terms and conditions is not something sensible I can do today."

TalkTalk customer Hilary Foster said she fears the £600 missing from her account may be linked to the hack.

She said that alarm bells rang when a mortgage payment was refused."

"I'm still very angry (about) the fact that my details are potentially out there somewhere on the internet and I'm going to have to keep checking my bank statements now for a long time," she said.

TalkTalk has said there was currently no evidence that customers' bank accounts had been affected as a result of this week's attack.

Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee said that claims by customers that TalkTalk had covered up the seriousness of the attack should be investigated.

He said: “Suggestions that TalkTalk has covered up both the scale and duration of this attack are alarming and unacceptable and must be thoroughly investigated. When such sensitive data as bank details have been compromised, companies have a duty to warn customers immediately.”

Christopher Graham, the UK Information Commissioner, criticised TalkTalk’s response saying his  office was informed at 4.30pm on Thursday despite the attack taking place on Wednesday morning.

He said: “I wish we had heard a little bit earlier and we could have been more 'out there' giving advice to consumers about what they need to protect their personal information.”

Mr Graham said the ICO was still investigating TalkTalk over two previous data breaches, and warned that if the company had failed to secure data properly it could lead to serious fines. “People have got to take this seriously,” he said.

Ms Harding defended TalkTalk's response saying the communicated publicly as "fast as we possibly could".

"Thirty six hours after the attack began was when we started to communicate to customers, but when the attack began, all I knew was that criminals were attacking my website," she said.

"I didn't know what they were looking to do with that attack, what information they were targeting.  So I couldn't communicate that immediately. 

"We took the decision to communicate before we knew the total scale of the attack.

"In terms of the Information Commissioner, we reported that within the time we are required to.

"I know that to people 36 hours feels like a very long time, I can assure you we had teams working round the clock, internal and external security experts, to get to a sense of the scale of the attack, so that we were able to communicate it."

On Saturday night it emerged TalkTalks sponsorship ads on the hit Simon Cowell-fronted ITV show XFactor had vanished, while it was announced communications about the sponsorship had ceased to concentrate on reassuring customers.

The promos feature fans of The X Factor who create and star in their own music video using a special Bopheads app. After filming themselves singing along to a track, fans superimpose their head onto the body of a choreographed actor in a music video.

The best fan-generated idents were being broadcast during The X Factor and over 160 fan-created spots were to be broadcast throughout the series.