Back button blunder in WebFiling service run by Companies House revealed confidential paperwork

Companies House was forced to pull down its record-filing platform for the entire weekend to rectify a "security issue" that exposed the personal details of company directors and other data to any logged in users.

The government agency, which manages the UK's register of all businesses and their directors, temporarily shut down its WebFiling service on March 13 at 13.30 UTC following reports that hidden company details could be seen and modified.

In a statement, it confirmed techies resolved the flaw on and WebFiling was online again from 09.00 today.

While the mishap allowed directors to read and change hidden data belonging to other companies, in theory any individual could have created a company on the platform and abused the flaw.

"Our investigation has established that specific data from individual companies not normally published on the Companies House register may have been visible to other logged-in WebFiling ...