A 15-year old boy has been arrested in relation to the hack of a U.K. phone company which was feared as one of the U.K.'s biggest ever cybersecurity attacks.
The child, from County Antrim, Northern Ireland, was released on bail until November on Tuesday morning.
After the hack of the company was announced, which potentially compromised the data of close to four million customers, experts speculated that a large criminal organization was behind what the company called a "significant and sustained cyber-attack". On Tuesday, police were searching a house in the Ballymena area of Northern Ireland, where the child was arrested on suspicion of breaching the Computer Misuse Act. The 15-year old was being questioned in Antrim police station.
TalkTalk confirmed the arrest in a statement and added: "We know this has been a worrying time for customers and we are grateful for the swift response and hard work of the police."
TalkTalk's share price, which had fallen by more than 20 percent since news of the hack emerged last week, moved up by around 7 percent in Tuesday trading as it looked as though the breach might be less serious than previously feared.
The phone company's chief executive, Dido Harding, said at the weekend that only partial credit card details would have been taken would have been and "not usable" for financial transactions, removing one area of real concern about the hack.
Still, questions must be raised about how easy it was to breach the phone company's cybersecurity.
"The type of attack suffered by TalkTalk once again highlights the significant danger that cybercrime poses and the impact that it can have on the community,"the area's member of parliament, Ian Paisley, said in a statement.