British police make fourth arrest in TalkTalk cyber attack

The company says fewer than 21,000 bank account numbers and sort codes have been accessed

LONDON: British police have made a fourth arrest in connection with a cyber attack on telecoms company TalkTalk in which the company said bank details of more than 20,000 customers were hacked.

A 16-year-old boy from Norwich in eastern England was in custody and his address was being searched, London police said in a statement on Tuesday.

On Saturday, a 20-year-old man from Staffordshire, central England, was arrested, following the arrests of a 16-year-old boy in west London and a 15-year-old boy in Northern Ireland. All three have been released on bail.

TalkTalk shocked customers last month when the broadband, TV, mobile and fixed-line service provider said it had been hacked, potentially putting the private details of its 4 million customers into the hands of criminals.



The company has since said the attack was smaller than first thought. It said fewer than 21,000 unique bank account numbers and sort codes had been accessed.

Fewer than 28,000 obscured bank details were accessed, and fewer than 1.2 million customer email addresses, names and phone numbers accessed.