Morrisons payroll data on 100,000 staff stolen and put online

Morrisons has launched an investigation after pay and bank account details of 100,000 staff were published on a website.

A disk containing the information was then sent to local paper the Bradford Telegraph & Argus by a “concerned Morrisons shopper”.

The information included names, addresses and bank account details of staff from all levels of the supermarket chain.

Morrisons alerted staff to the leak this morning. In a note to its Facebook page it said:

“We are extremely sorry to inform you that there has been a theft of colleagues’ personal information, which was uploaded onto a website. As soon as we became aware of this last night we took immediate steps to ensure the data was removed from the website. It was closed down within hours of us being notified.”

Morrisons also confirmed it was an illegal theft of data, that the data could no longer be accessed on the website, and that it was liaising with the police and the “highest level of cyber crime authorities”.

“Our immediate priority is the security of your financial information. We are currently working with Experian and the major banks to ensure that we provide full support and assistance to all affected colleagues. This will include support and advice around protection of your bank account,” it added.

It also said it had set up a helpline and that CEO Dalton Philips was “leading the response”.

News of the leak comes just 24 hours after Morrisons posted a £176m pre-tax loss due to a write-down on the value of its property and IT.

Underlying pre-tax profits fell 13% to £785m on total sales down 2% to £17.7bn for the year to 2 February. Like-for-like sales were down 2.8%.

Update: Morrisons confirmed on Monday 17 March an employee had been arrested in relation to the payroll leak.

This story was updated at 10.56 on 17 March.