In this undated photo, people queue at the General Post Office in Central district of Hong Kong. (PHOTO / AFP)

HONG KONG – The government postal services of Hong Kong has revealed that it has identified a data security issue involving its account holders, in which an unauthorized party obtained 7,249 email addresses registered with the department.

Hongkong Post said the unauthorized party made countless attempts through its electronic service function, to test and try to guess the registered email addresses of its account holders, and eventually by chance located the email addresses, the government said in a statement on Friday night. 

READ MORE: Cybersecurity summit: HK sees growing threats

The incident only involved email addresses, it said, confirming that the hackers could not obtain the account holders' personal information such as their login names and passwords or their account transactions.

Hongkong Post said it didn’t find any indication that there was any leakage of or tampering with the account holders' personal information or any suspicious activities of the accounts concerned

Hongkong Post added that it did not find any indication that there was any leakage of or tampering with the account holders' personal information or any suspicious activities of the accounts concerned. 

All affected account holders were immediately informed in writing when the incident was identified on Oct 18, it said.

Hongkong Post took immediate measures to further tighten up its system security, according to the statement. 

In addition to reporting the case to police, the postal services department sought advice from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data that day and filed a report to the office on Friday.

Hongkong Post also reported the case to the government Information Security Incident Response Office according to the established government procedures. 

It is now seeking advice from the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer to further enhance its security measures.

ALSO READ: Data security must be enhanced to foil threats  

It urged the public to refrain from clicking on any embedded links or providing any personal or financial information such as credit card information as well as making any payment to suspicious emails or SMS messages alleged to be sent by Hongkong Post.

Hongkong Post reiterated that it will not send embedded hyperlinks via emails, SMS messages or social media pages to collect personal information or request payment.