Sept. 25 (UPI) -- London-based accountant, tax consultant and cybersecurity firm Deloitte LLP reported a hack of its internal emails on Monday.
The company, one is of the global "Big Four" of the accounting business, said in a statement that it was successfully targeted by a cyberattack, giving hackers access to data from its emails. It said "very few" customers were affected, and added that customers and government agencies were notified.
The emails of 244,000 Deloitte employees, worldwide, were stored on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform.
The hack was first discovered in March, but Deloitte believes the cyberattack may have occurred as early as October 2016, the Guardian reported Monday. It added that sources said access to information came through an "administrator's account" which provided access to all areas of Deloitte's data. The account required only a single password to enter.
The breach was focused on data in the United States and analysts in Deloitte's Rosslyn, Va., office have been investigating potentially compromised documents for the past six months. The firm provides auditing, consulting and cybersecurity advice to government agencies and to the world's largest companies.
The hack, although significantly smaller in scale, follows news last week that personal data of up to 143 million U.S. consumers was potentially compromised in a breach at the U.S. credit reporting company Equifax Inc.
