Fota Wildlife Park in Cork has been hit by a cyberattack.
Customers who recently bought tickets online have been told their financial information may be at risk, and are being urged to cancel their debit and credit cards.
The park's website reportedly went offline on Wednesday night. The attraction will open on Thursday as planned, with tickets available at kiosks only.
Park management have already hired external forensic cybersecurity experts to investigate, and alerted gardaí and the Data Protection Commissioner.
An email, sent to a customer who bought tickets online at the weekend, warned: “There is a risk to your financial information”.
It “strongly recommended” action to protect bank accounts, including cancelling cards used to buy tickets on the Fota Wildlife Park website.
The email advised a review of bank account activity and credit card statements going back as far as May 12th this year.
It said customers should look for “potential suspicious activity which may indicate that an account has been compromised”.
Fota said: “We would like to assure you that we take our responsibility to protect your personal and financial information seriously and have given this matter the utmost priority.”
In a statement to the Irish Examiner, Fota Wildlife Park confirmed that illegal cyber activity was recently identified which impacted its website.
"The organisation’s incident response plan was immediately activated, an internal investigation was instigated and appropriate measures were taken to secure the organisation’s website".
"The incident has been notified to the relevant authorities and Fota Wildlife Park is cooperating with those authorities. Fota Wildlife Park is in the process of contacting all potentially impacted customers. In the meantime, Fota Wildlife Park’s day-to-day operations continue as normal."
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