Cybercriminals calling themselves ExfilSquad have claimed responsibility for compromising data from two UK Department for Education portals — the DfE Help Desk Self-Service Portal and the Turing Scheme Portal — and are demanding a ransom in exchange for not releasing it, The Record reports.

A DfE spokesperson said the 600,000 figure refers to lines of data rather than individuals affected, and that the information is limited to customer service contact details including names, email addresses and phone numbers. The department said the risk to individuals is not considered high and that it has contained the incident. There is no claim the hackers encrypted the systems.

Separately, the Police National Legal Database was also compromised, affecting 135,000 pieces of data that could identify names, forces and work email addresses of police officers and criminal justice workers, The Record reports. The Home Office declined to comment.