Fota Wildlife Park hit by cyberattack; Customers urged to cancel credit cards

The website for Fota Wildlife Park was offline last night, but the park remains open today, with people able to buy tickets at the kiosks only

People who recently bought tickets online for Fota Wildlife Park have been urged to cancel credit or debit cards following a cyber-security breach. 

The website for Fota Wildlife Park was offline on Wednesday night, but the park will be open on Thursday, with people able to buy tickets at the kiosks only. 

Park management have already hired external forensic cyber-security 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 12 this year.

It said customers should look for “potential suspicious activity which may indicate that an account has been compromised”.

“We understand that this may be of significant concern to you,” Fota said in the alert.

“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.” 

Park officials pledged to fully cooperate with a Data Protection Commission investigation and said they are already working with An Garda Síochána.

In a statement, Fota Wildlife Park said: "Fota Wildlife Park can confirm 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."

The statement did not say how many customers are potentially impacted by the breach but it is the latest cyber-attack to hit a prominent Irish organisation.

Just last month, the Defence Policy Review warned that Ireland is “increasingly susceptible” to cyber-attacks, and in June, a number of Irish websites experienced failed cyberattacks as part of an organised campaign across EU member states. 

These included Bus Eireann, the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, and voter registration website Voter.ie.

At the time the Department of Communications said the impact was minimal, mainly due to how prepared the websites were for potential attacks.