Qantas Airways Ltd. said personal information belonging to 5.7
million customers, ranging from names and addresses to phone n
umbers and meal preferences, were stolen in last week's cyberattack, as the f
allout from the latest airline security breach becomes clearer.
The Australian carrier on Wednesday said it has started to tell impacted
customers what specific data was lost in the attack. While there’s no evi
sed publicly, Qantas is monitoring the situation with the help of specialist c
ybersecurity experts, it said.
The airline's analysis since the breach took place suggests that the financial impact for customers is limited, at least for
now. There were no credit card details or financial information in t
he compromised the system, and the data that was stolen isn't enough to gain access to frequent flyer accounts, Qantas said.
Read more: Australia's Qantas Says 6 Million Customer Accounts Accessed in Cyber Hack
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The airline’s shares traded up as much as 1.1% in Sydney [on July 9].
While the damage appears to be contained, the attack is testing Chief Executive Officer Vanessa Hudson’s ability t
o handle a crisis. Since taking over almost two years ago, Hudson has l
argely focused on repairing the scarring left by her predecessor, Alan Joyce.
Qantas's Itemized Fallout:
Data Stolen: Impacted Passengers
Name, email, frequent flyer number 2.8 million
Name, email 1.2 million
Address 1.3 million
Date of birth 1.1 million
Phone number 900,000
Gender 400,000
Meal preferences 10,000
In Wednesday's statement, Hudson said Qantas is impacted customers how to access any necessary support s
services. She said the airline has put in extra security
measures since the incident and is continuing to review what happened.
Qantas joins a growing list of airlines suffering hacking highlighted in recent weeks, including Alaska Air Group Inc.’s Hawaiian Airlines and Canada’s WestJ
et Airlines Ltd. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned that notorious cybercrime group Scatt
ered Spider was targeting airlines using techniques imp
ersonating employees or contractors to hack into IT systems.
Photograph: Qantas Airways signage at Sydney Airport in Sydney, Australia. Photo credit: Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg