UK pub chain JD Wetherspoon said today it was taking action after discovering that a small number of its customer and staff details may have been accessed by a cyber attack.
The company said that it had informed all of its customers by email and planned to conduct a full forensic investigation into the breach of security, which allowed some credit and debit card details to be accessed.
Wetherspoon said the hacked information had been obtained from its old website, which had already been replaced. Its new website had no connection to the website that was breached.
"We apologise wholeheartedly to customers and staff who have been affected," the company's chief executive John Hutson said in a statement.
"Unfortunately, hacking is becoming more and more sophisticated and widespread. We are determined to respond to this by increasing our efforts and investment in security and will be doing everything possible to prevent a recurrence," he added.
Cyber security has become an increasing concern for companies in Britain following a widely reported attack on telecoms services provider TalkTalk's website earlier this year which enabled the attackers to obtain some of the personal details of 157,000 customers.
There have also been several high profile cases of cyber attacks in North America including the leaking of details of millions of customers of infidelity website Ashley Madison, while Sony's film studios were hit in November 2014.
