FAI says no significant data lost in hack

Information relating to inquiries into governance has been secured

The FAI has said that it does not believe any significant data has been lost after an attempt to hack into its servers last week.

The association’s email system was affected by the incident last Friday and many staff were unable to send or receive messages for 24 hours or more. Historical caches of messages were also initially rendered inaccessible.

An investigation into the incident was undertaken immediately and is still ongoing with three outside experts brought in on Saturday to lead it. Their work is continuing but email services are said to be back to normal with most records restored. The belief is, it seems, that everything will be recovered before this work is complete.

A spokesman for the association said that the payment details of its customers - whether supporters who have purchased match tickets or grassroots coaches who have paid for courses - are unaffected as all financial transactions are processed by external third parties.

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Similar attacks on other organisations have often been staged with the intention of stealing credit card details, often successfully, but the association is adamant that no such breach has occurred.

It is also said that all of the information requested by the various outside agencies conducting inquiries into the governance or finances of the association has been secured. Much of this information has already been passed on to the likes of Mazars and Grant Thornton, two of the firms to have commenced their work a couple of months ago.

Emmet Malone

Emmet Malone

Emmet Malone is Work Correspondent at The Irish Times