In early June, PageUp, the manager of Whitbread’s online recruitment portal, revealed it had become the subject of a cyber attack.

Enterprise Times reports in the case of Whitbread the breach has affected job applicants that have used the Whitbread online recruitment system – specifically, applicants for jobs at Costa Coffee and Premier Inn.

On Monday, Whitbread on sent out an email which said “there is a possibility” that any data submitted in the course of recruitment “may have been accessed and could potentially (in combination with other information) be used for identity theft”.

According to Whitbread, PageUp had advised them they were not aware of any fraudulent activity relating to the data it holds on its systems, while Whitbread advised applicants to change their password if it was the same as they use on other online services.

Whitbread has also suspended the use of PageUp as soon as it became aware of the incident and stopped current applicants from uploading their data into the system.

A Whitbread spokesman told trade title Computer Business Review the company was not disclosing the number of people that had potentially been affected by the breach.

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