"We are aware that some e-commerce customers have been directly contacted by someone purporting to have taken some personal data from one of our third-party providers' systems," a Harrods spokesperson told Computer Weekly. "We have notified all relevant authorities, including the National Cyber Security Centre and the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime unit, and they are actively investigating. "Negotiating with cyber criminals does not result in any guarantees as to what they may do with the information they have accessed," the spokesperson said.