13 Feb 2010

Major security breach at Shell oil

9:16 am on 13 February 2010

The Shell oil company has suffered a major security breach, with contact details of more than 170,000 of its staff published on the internet.

An attached note says the information was leaked by a group of employees concerned by some of Shell's practices.

But Shell has said it does not believe this version of events, the BBC reports.

It says the contact details do not include any home addresses and do not pose any risk to its employees.

The details - which include names, office telephone numbers and postcodes of employees worldwide - have been emailed to environmental and human rights groups.

In some cases, they reveal private details such as home phone numbers.