Australian airline Qantas yesterday said that data from 5.7 million customers stolen in a major cyberattack this year had been shared online, part of a leak affecting dozens of firms.
Disney, Google, IKEA, Toyota, McDonald’s and fellow airlines Air France and KLM are also reported to have had data stolen in a cyberattack targeting software firm Salesforce, with the information now being held for ransom.
Qantas confirmed in July that hackers had targeted one of its customer contact centers, breaching a computer system used by a third party now known to have been Salesforce.
Photo: AFP
They secured access to sensitive information such as customer names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers and birthdays, Qantas said.
No further breaches have taken place since and the company is cooperating with Australian security services.
“Qantas is one of a number of companies globally that has had data released by cyber criminals following the airline’s cyber incident in early July, where customer data was stolen via a third party platform,” the company.
Most of the data leaked was names, e-mail addresses and frequent flyer details, but some also included customers’ “business or home address, date of birth, phone number, gender and meal preferences,” it said.
“No credit card details, personal financial information or passport details were impacted,” Qantas said.
It also said it had obtained a legal injunction with the Supreme Court to prevent the stolen data being “accessed, viewed, released, used, transmitted or published.”
Cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt said that would do little to prevent the spread of the data.
“It’s frankly ridiculous,” he said. “It obviously doesn’t stop criminals at all anywhere, and it also really doesn’t have any effect on people outside of Australia.”
Cybersecurity analysts have linked the hack to people with ties to an alliance of cybercriminals called Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters.
Research group Unit 42 said in a note the group had “asserted responsibility for laying siege to customer Salesforce tenants as part of a coordinated effort to steal data and hold it for ransom.”
The deadline for the ransom payment was reportedly on Friday.
The hack of data from Australia’s biggest airline comes as a string of major cyberattacks in the country has raised concerns about the protection of personal data.
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