The security breach forced Companies House to shut down the entire company filing service, WebFiling, last Friday. The vulnerability was discovered on Thursday by John Hewitt, operations director at Ghost Mail, an authorised corporate services provider (ACSP).

The security vulnerability in the Companies House register allowed people to access other companies’ details by pressing the back key on their  company’s dashboard. This included a raft of highly personal information, including directors’ home addresses, email addresses and dates of birth.

Companies House WebFiling service remains closed while the security breach is investigated and stressed filers should take a screen grab to show the error to avoid receiving fines for late filing.