British shipping company Clarkson has 'fessed up to a data breach, saying a miscreant has accessed its systems and the public should expect some of it to be made public.

Clarkson PLC declined to answer The Register's inquiry about how much data had been compromised or whether it belonged to customers and merely referred us to the company's announcement (PDF) for any additional information.

Clarksons boasts on its website that it is "the world's leading provider of integrated shipping services, bringing our connections and experience to an international client base". It began operations 165 years ago and now operates in 21 countries. Its 2016 revenue was £306.1m.

According to the announcement, "unauthorised access" to "computer systems" was "gained via a single and isolated user account which has now been disabled".

Cryptically, the announcement noted "the person or persons behind the incident may release some data" and "the data at issue is confidential and lawyers are on standby wherever needed to take all necessary steps to preserve the confidentiality in the information".

The announcement notes the firm is "working with the police in relation to this incident".

The company boasts it began a cyber security review earlier this year and "put in place additional security measures to best prevent a similar incident happening in the future".

CEO Andi Case said in a statement: "We hope that, in time, we can share the lessons learned with our clients to help stop them from becoming victims themselves. In the meantime, I hope our clients understand that we would not be held to ransom by criminals, and I would like to sincerely apologise for any concern this incident may have understandably raised." ®