TalkTalk revealed on Tuesday that its chief information and security officer (CISO) has been given free rein to strengthen the telco’s cyber security capabilities in the wake of October’s damaging hack.
Speaking at the Total Telecom Festival in London, Charles Bligh, managing director of TalkTalk Business, said that the company had been spending an increasing amount of money on security in the 12 months leading up to the attack.
"We obviously had a crime committed against us. We are very disappointed and displeased about that. We will be investing much more in security. It (security) was very much a topic at board meetings; it is even more so now," he said.
Bligh added that his CISO is "going to look at all aspects of our security and has complete carte blanche over all investments."
The cyber attack, which took place on 21 October, compromised the accounts of 156,959 TalkTalk customers, 15,656 of whom had their bank account numbers and sort codes stolen. 28,000 partial credit or debit card numbers were also stolen.
Five people have subsequently been arrested in connection with the attack.
In November, the telco announced it would offer all customers free upgrades, such as premium TV content and unlimited calls, by way of apology.
In total, the attack is expected to cost TalkTalk £30 million-£35 million. The charges will be recognised in the company’s fiscal second quarter, and consist of the cost of communicating with affected customers, internal and external IT costs, the forgone revenue due to TalkTalk’s Websites being offline for three weeks, an uptick in churn, and the estimated cost of the free upgrades.
