The personal data of about 15,000 members of a credit union had been stolen in a cyber attack. The information including names, addresses, national insurance numbers, and bank details had been accessed. This incident exposes you to text messaging, cold calling, and attempts to defraud." It was believed hackers accessed the data using a so-called "brute-force" attack, where they bombard computer systems with different password combinations in the hope of effectively guessing the correct one through trial and error.