Eircom has apologised to users of its email service after it was forced to restrict access to it on Tuesday after detecting a possible intrusion attempt.

The group has said that access to eircom.net email had been fully restored, adding that there was no evidence to suggest any impact on its customers’ data and said it would continue to investigate the cause of the intrusion.

“In line with industry best practice, we strongly recommend that customers change their email account passwords today and on a regular basis,” the company said. It acknowledged that the outage had caused a significant inconvenience to the users of its 350,000 email accounts. Eircom had said earlier that it locked down its email service on Tuesday evening after it detected an intrusion.

The company said it took immediate steps to eliminate possible threat to its users, including implementing a number of system modifications to its service.

It also said it had alerted relevant bodies of the attempted intrusion, including the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.