The Royal Yachting Association (RYA) has forced members to reset their passwords after revealing that their data could have been accessed by a third party.

The UK’s yachting authority took the step despite passwords being salted and hashed, and it has also encouraged members to be wary of any potential phishing scams that could attempt to capitalise on the breach notification.

A spokesperson for RYA said: “We have recently become aware that an unauthorised party accessed and may have acquired a database created in 2015 containing personal data associated with a number of RYA user accounts. The affected information included email addresses and RYA website passwords which were encrypted and therefore not visible.

“The affected information included name, email and hashed passwords – the majority held with the salted hash function, which is used to secure passwords.

“The affected data did not include any financial or payment information and in this stage in our investigation there is no evidence that this data has been misused – it was legacy test data and it appears that the unauthorised party who gained access to a hosted server subsequently deleted that database.”

The spokesperson added that any email from the RYA about this issue with the subject line ‘Important notification regarding RYA Account Security’ does not contain attachments and does not request personal data.

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“If you receive an email about this issue which suggests you download an attachment, or asks you for information, the email was not sent by RYA and may be an attempt to steal your personal data,” they said.

The RYA is the national governing body for dinghy, yacht and motor cruising, all forms of sail racing, RIBs and sports boats, windsurfing and personal watercraft, and a representative for inland waterways cruising.

Some people have expressed surprise at receiving the RYA’s warning email even though they are not members of the association.