UK kitchenware store Lakeland has warned that customer details may have been stolen in a “sophisticated and sustained” hacking attack on its website. Apparently crackers exploited a flaw in the company’s system to access two encrypted databases last Friday, the firm said.

It has alerted customers and urged those who use just one password online to change this on each of their accounts. Lakeland managing director Sam Rayner apologised for the “inconvenience caused” and said immediate action was taken to block the attack. The attack used a very recently identified flaw in the system used by the servers running the company website. Hacking the Lakeland site has taken a concerted effort and considerable skill, Rayner said.

What was weird was that there was no evidence to suggest any data was stolen and said the “sophisticated and sustained” attack had no impact on its stores or mail order call centre. The only thing that happened was that customers’ online passwords were deleted and these needed to be reset.

Of all the sophisticated hacks this appears to have been pretty pointless.