Business directors are urged to check their details after a major glitch on Companies House allowed people to edit the data of other firms, leaving them potentially exposed to fraud.
On Friday, a tech glitch on the UK’s official corporate register permitted people to access other companies’ details by pressing the back key on the site’s dashboard.
This led to the potential exposure of the five million companies on the register and allowed people to view directors’ addresses, email addresses, and dates of birth, all due to the tech bungle.
Dan Neidle, founder of Tax Policy Associates and the man who alerted Companies House to the problem, posted on X “anyone who owns a company should check its Companies House details right now”.
Neidle said: “This could have been used to make replace all the directors of Goldman Sachs with Mickey Mouse.
“But the experts we spoke to thought sophisticated bad actors would target limited numbers of small companies; change office/directors, apply for loans, run off with the money.”
Companies House suspends filing
Companies House has suspended the filing service temporarily as a result of the glitch.
A Companies House spokesperson said on Friday evening: “We are aware of an issue with our WebFiling service and have closed it while we investigate.
“We apologise for any inconvenience to our customers.”
It has also urged customers that they will miss their filing deadline that there is “no need” to contact the register.
“File as soon as you can once the service is available, and take a screenshot of any error messages and note the time and date. We’ll take this evidence into account if you cannot file.”
The Computer Misuse Act 1990 dictates that unauthorised access to computer material warrants a maximum prison sentence of two years. The penalty increases to up to five years for accessing data with the intention to commit further offences, such as fraud.
It marks the second big tech glitch in the space of a week, after users of the Lloyds Banking Group saw rogue transactions on their mobile banking app on Thursday morning.
