Telecom hack to cost up to $53 million

TalkTalk estimates that the fallout from its highly-publicized breach will cost the British telecom provider between £30 million and £35 million ($45 million to $53 million), according to its half-year results.

{mosads}The company said Wednesday that it is still on track to deliver its 2016 goals, set prior to last month’s cyberattack.

“We obviously saw an immediate bounce in customers wishing to cancel their direct debits and to churn, but we saw those leading indicators come back down quite quickly,” CEO Dido Harding told Reuters in an interview Wednesday.

Forensic analysis revealed last week that the hack was much smaller in scope than originally anticipated.

Just over 150,000 customers had personal data breached, with around 15,500 bank account numbers and routing numbers compromised.

The breach was originally reported as having the potential to be one of largest in U.K. history, thanks to TalkTalk’s 4 million customers.

Police have arrested three teenagers and a 20-year-old man in connection with the hack.

TalkTalk is still under the microscope, however, and British lawmakers have opened an investigation into the incident.

“The recent events have highlighted serious issues relating both to existing cybersecurity and the response to cyber crime,” said Jesse Norman, a member of Parliament who chairs the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which is spearheading the inquiry.

“This committee is concerned with the attacks on TalkTalk specifically as a telecoms and Internet service provider,” Norman said. “We will also be looking more widely at the security of personal information online.”

The company has faced criticism for its data security practices.

Harding told the BBC when the hack was revealed that “the awful truth is I don’t know” whether all the data was encrypted.

“With the benefit of hindsight, were we doing enough?” Harding said. “Well, you’ve got to say that we weren’t and obviously we will be looking back and reviewing that extremely seriously.”