Retailer Pepco loses about 15 mln euros in Hungarian phishing attack

European discount retailer Pepco Group PCO has been the target of a phishing attack against its Hungarian business, resulting in about 15 million euros ($16.3 million) of losses, it said on Tuesday.

"It is unclear at this stage whether the funds can be recovered, although Pepco is pursuing various efforts through its banking partners and the police," the company said.

At this stage, the incident does not appear to have involved any customer, supplier or staff information or data, it added.

Pepco said the group had a strong balance sheet with access to more than 400 million euros in liquidity from cash and credit facilities, and continued to generate strong cash flow from its operations.

It did not provide further details on the phishing attack.

"The Group takes financial controls and IT security extremely seriously and is currently conducting a group-wide review of all systems and processes to secure the business more robustly going forward," it said in a press release.

Pepco Group has 248 stores in Hungary and had first-quarter revenue of 1.9 billion euros.

($1 = 0.9213 euros)