Electric Ireland customers are being asked to cancel debit and credit cards

Those who pay Electric Ireland through bank accounts have been told to go back two years to check whether their bank accounts have been hacked.

It is understood an individual gained access to the financial and other data of 8,000 of the energy supplier’s customers at a call center used by Electric Ireland.

Gardaí have been called in to investigate the data breach.

Customers affected by the breach were advised to change their passwords and monitor for suspicious activity on their accounts.

The 8,000 people whose data was hacked were contacted this week informing them of the breach

Customers were told their financial information may have been compromised.

Other personal data such as name and address, email, telephone number, date of birth and bank details (IBAN) could also have fallen into the wrong hands.

Those affected were told in Electric Ireland’s letter to “block the credit/debit card(s) used to make payments to Electric Ireland”.

They were also told to “review your relevant bank account and credit card statements since October 2021 to determine whether there is any suspicious activity that may indicate that your account has been compromised and subjected to fraud.”

The ESB-owned company said: “Our investigations have revealed that approximately 8,000 customer accounts may have been compromised.”

Electric Ireland said it had written to all potentially affected customers to make them aware of the issue.

Affected customers have also been given instructions on what measures they need to take to mitigate the risk of potential financial fraud.

Customers who had not received a letter from Electric Ireland did not need to take any action, it said.

“This matter is currently under investigation and Electric Ireland is in contact with An Garda Síochána and the Data Protection Commissioner. Therefore, the details of this case must remain confidential,” the utility said.

Electric Ireland, which has around 1.1 million customers, said it was fully aware of the seriousness of this issue and the concern and inconvenience it would cause to affected customers.

Customers affected by this issue who may have experienced fraudulent activity on their financial accounts relating to the data they provided to Electric Ireland have been asked to contact the company directly.

Electric Ireland will then inform An Garda Síochána, who is leading this investigation, it said.

Customers are also advised to contact their bank.

This is just the latest mistake from Electric Ireland.

In September, the company apologized and said it was refunding customers after it miscalculated their utility bills and overcharged them.

It was the second time in recent months that Electric Ireland had to admit to billing errors.

The latest error prompted the supplier to contact affected customers and apologize that it would issue credit notes to cover the overbilling.

Electric Ireland could not say how many customers were affected by the overcharging, which is affecting people with smart meters.