More than 8,000 users of Eircom's Studyhub service may have had their account details compromised in a hacking incident, the company said yesterday. The data breach took place on Thursday, when the servers of the company providing the online study tool to Eircom, Clear Voice Systems Ltd ( ExamSupport.ie), were hacked.

Usernames and passwords of some 8,404 Eircom users of the online study tool as well as more than 2,000 users of Examsupport.iewere potentially accessed in the incident.

Eircom said that Examsupport.iehas strengthened its security and it advised users to change their passwords. The company informed gardaí and the Data Protection Commissioner. The incident comes just a week after it emerged that the personal details of nearly 7,000 Eircom customers were contained on three unencrypted laptop computers stolen over Christmas.