Spanish bank Santander said Tuesday that some of its customer data in Spain, Chile and Uruguay, as well as that of current and former employees, had been subject to unauthorized access in a database hosted by an external provider.

"The bank immediately implemented measures to manage the incident, such as blocking access to the database and reinforcing fraud prevention to protect customers," the bank, one of the largest in the euro zone, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Inti Landauro and Jesus Aguado; edited by Andrei Khalip; edited in Spanish by Mireia Merino)