PERSONAL data of nearly 8,000 people has been hacked from the Ashmolean Museum’s website.

The cyber-attack meant the details of 7,757 people who had bought tickets to the museum’s exhibitions online were extracted by an unknown hacker.

But the hack has not affected everyone who has used the Beaumont Street museum’s website to book tickets.

Details which were exposed are the names, e-mails, addresses and telephone numbers of those affected.

Ashmolean spokesman Claire Parris said: “A cyber-attack on the Ashmolean Museum’s website was recently identified and quickly blocked.

“No financial information and no sensitive personal data were exposed in the attack.

“Museum staff are working with staff of the university’s IT Services to manage the response to the incident and are doing everything possible to ensure there are no further such attacks.”

The museum has written to those affected to apologise for the security breach and has reported the incident to the Information Commissioner.

Botley resident Paul Fisher, 40, was one of those affected by the cyber-attack.
He said: “The first thing I did was change my email password.

“It's worrying that this seems to be happening regularly, but it's good that they got in touch with me as soon as they could.”.

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