A TOP politician has had a letter from Rupert Murdoch’s news empire warning his personal data may have been hacked – but not by them.

On Saturday morning a letter arrived through the door of Coun Derique Montaut (Lab, Central), the ex-leader of the party in Swindon, telling him cyber criminals who hacked News Internat-ional’s websites may have accessed some of his personal information.

It stems from a security breach last month, when The Sun’s website was targeted by a group called LulzSec.

The letter sent to Coun Montaut, a former subscriber to News International title The Times, was from head of customer management Chris Duncan.

It read: “I’m writing to you on behalf of News Group Newspapers, the publishers of The Sun and former publisher of The News of the World.

“As you may be aware on July 19, 2011, The Sun website was subject to an organised criminal attack and it came to our attention on July 30, 2011 some customers’ information was breached as part of this attack.

“We have worked since then to establish exactly what’s been accessed. No financial or password information was compromised.

“We’re contacting you because we believe the details you submitted to us have been accessed and may be published online by the group responsible, though at time of writing we were not aware of any information that has been published.

“We are working closely with the police and Information Commissioners’ Office to ensure all steps are taken to disable the copied files.

“We regret that we have not been able to stop this incident from happening.

“We’ll update you directly if there are further developments related to your specific data.

“We would advise as a precaution to take extra care when dealing with contact from third parties if they are unknown to you.”

It is not clear exactly what kind of information has been hacked.

Coun Montaut said: “The Times and Sunday Times didn’t necessarily reflect my political views. It was very much to the right. But it gave me the information I required.

“If you can’t trust what used to be a reputable international company, who can you trust?”

He said he is sure he cannot be the only one in Swindon to have received such a letter.

“As a loyal reader of The Times for many years, I’ve been very concerned that information I’ve submitted to News International can now be made public.

“The vulnerability of my finances and threat of it leads me to be deeply concerned about this. When you deal with a reputable company you trust them with your personal details.”

But it is impossible to be 100 per cent secure, said one Swindon internet expert.

Heydar Faramarzi, managing director of Eminico Technologies in Stonehill Green Business Park, said: “The bigger you are, the more people attack.

“Nobody is going to attack my website. They won’t bother. But a bank or newspaper – those websites are the ones they attack.

“You can never say it’s perfect. It’s exactly like if you lock your door, you have a chain and so on. But at the end of the day, people just break in.

“To be honest with you, it’s normally kids messing about. They’ve got the time, and just keep trying and trying and get lucky eventually.”