They wonder why the traveling public doesn’t trust anything anymore. A new data breach has impacted more than 9.4 million travelers leaking personal information, including passport numbers and credit card information.
Hong Kong-based airline Cathay Pacific revealed the security breach revealed sensitive information like passenger names, nationalities, dates of birth and phone numbers. Email addresses, home addresses, passport numbers, identity card numbers, frequent flyer program membership numbers, customer service remarks, and historic travel information were also shown.
This is the largest airline data breach in the world.
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Cathay Pacific CEO Rupert Hogg released a statement saying “we are in the process of contacting affected passengers, using multiple communications channels, and providing them with information on steps they can take to protect themselves.” Assuring passengers of their safety, Hogg says “we have no evidence that any personal data has been misused.”
Cathay Pacific isn’t the only airline getting the side-eye from travelers. Today, British Airways revealed that another 185,000 customers may have been compromised during last month’s data breach. First announced in September, hackers compromised credit card info of at least 380,000 customers in a robbery attempt of data from the company’s online booking systems. A special investigation revealed hackers “may have stolen” payment details, including CVV numbers, of an additional 77,000 customers.
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Another 108,000 also saw their payment details, without CVV, “potentially compromised” during the incident. British Airways says those “potentially impacted customers” were those making reward bookings between April 21, 2018, and July 28, 2018, and who used a payment card.
Even though it was just announced Wednesday, Cathay Pacific actually discovered the breach seven months ago. Calling the police back in March, the airline’s IT team worked to contain the event with help of a leading cybersecurity firm. Thankfully, the security breach had no impact on flight safety, as the data hack didn’t reach the airline’s flight operations systems.