Dixons Carphone took nearly a year to discover a huge data breach despite promising regulators it had bolstered its IT systems, it has emerged.
The electricals retailer revealed that 5.9m customer bank card details and 1.2m personal data records had been hacked in a major cyber attack on the business.
The breach is believed to have been caused by an advanced computer virus – or malware – which penetrated processing systems of Currys PC World and Dixons Travel stores.
Around 5.8m payment cards hit by the attack were protected by chip-and-PIN, according to the retailer, while 105,000 cards outside the EU without chip-and-PIN were compromised.
The hack happened in July last year, but was only discovered...