A "sophisticated cyberattack" on global financial body the International Monetary Fund earlier this year was "state sponsored" and resulted in large amounts data being leaked, according to a report by Bloomberg News.

The newswire cites an unnamed source that is "familiar with the matter" but declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak on the matter.

The IMF revealed the breach to staff of Wednesday. An internal email is reported to have said that an employee’s desktop was compromised, and that it was used to access sensitive documents. "This was a very major breach," an official told the Times newspaper.

The breach took place over several months earlier this year, before former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was accused of sexual assault.

It appears that financial and economic data is being targetted by hackers. France’s finance ministry was successfully compromised at the end of last year, while UK chancellor George Osborne revealed that the Treasury is subject to attempted cyber attacks on a daily basis, more than any other government department.