Qantas is facing a serious situation after hackers accessed personal data belonging to about 6 million customers. The Australian airline announced this investigation following unusual activity detected on a third-party platform earlier this week.
In response to the breach, Qantas took immediate action to secure its systems. The airline is looking into the extent of the data stolen, which it expects to be significant. The compromised information includes customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, and frequent flyer numbers. However, the airline confirmed that sensitive details like credit card information, financial data, and passport numbers were not affected.
Qantas has implemented extra security measures and alerted the police, the Australian Cyber Security Centre, and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner about the incident. Vanessa Hudson, the CEO of Qantas Group, expressed her regret over the breach, emphasizing the importance of customer trust. She stated that the airline is reaching out to affected customers to offer support.
This data breach comes at a challenging time for Qantas, as the airline is trying to restore its image after a series of controversies during the COVID-19 pandemic. These included selling tickets for canceled flights and opposing Qatar Airways’ request to increase its flights to Europe. Last year, Qantas dropped in the World Airline Awards rankings, but it has since made some improvements.
The cyberattack is part of a broader trend, as the FBI recently warned that a group known as Scattered Spider has been targeting airlines, often using tactics that involve impersonating employees or contractors to steal data for extortion.
As Qantas works to address this incident, the airline’s commitment to protecting customer information remains a top priority, and it is taking steps to ensure that such breaches do not happen in the future.