Data Breach Affects More Than 2 Million Frequent Flyers Across Airline Alliances
Skift Take
It's easy to feel jaded about data breaches given how often they happen. But it will raise eyebrows that hackers obtained data on loyalty flyers of Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Japan Airlines, Lufthansa, Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines, United, and other carriers by exploiting a SITA tech system not used by most of them.
More than two million travelers enrolled in the frequent flier programs of at least ten airlines had some of their data hacked, according to messages they received recently from the carriers.
Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Japan Airlines, Jeju Air, Lufthansa, Malaysia Airlines, New Zealand Air, SAS, Singapore Airlines, and United contacted their customers about the incident.
UPDATE: American Airlines and British Airways informed affected passengers on Friday afternoon. It now appears the breach affected all carrier members of Star Alliance and the One World alliance.
The carrier most affected appeared to be Lufthansa Group, with 1.3 million records accessed. Singapore Airlines, said that hackers accessed data on about 580,000 passengers who belong to its various loyalty programs. Finnair said hackers accessed records for 200,000 loyalty members.
Airline statements said the hack posed only a modest risk to members because they believe hackers only accessed basic data, such as a passenger's name, tier s
