At a time when the attack is being investigated by the PJ's National Unit to Combat Cybercrime and Technological Crime, the same source appealed to companies to invest and "use computer security" to face "a new reality" that is, cybercrime associated with modern technologies.

The source who spoke to Lusa, declined to comment on whether this computer attack on Vodafone was based on an extortion attempt on the part of hackers.

However, the operator admitted today that it was the target of a cyberattack on Monday and said that it has no evidence that customer data has been accessed and/or compromised, and is determined to restore the normality of services.

The company explained that it was the target of a "deliberate and malicious cyberattack" with the aim of causing damage and disruption.

The added that as soon as the first sign of a problem on the network was detected, they acted "immediately to identify and contain the effects and restore the services" and explain that the situation is affecting the provision of services based on data networks, namely 4G/5G network, fixed voice services, television, SMS and voice/digital answering services.

"We have already recovered mobile voice services and mobile data services are available exclusively on the 3G network in almost the entire country but, unfortunately, the scale and seriousness of the criminal act to which we were subjected implies a careful and prolonged recovery work that involves multiple national and international teams and external partners", adds the company, underlining that this recovery will happen progressively throughout today.