On October 24, Cathay Pacific announced that the passenger data of 9.4 million people had been accessed in a hack carried out earlier this year. In an official statement by the publicly traded Hong Kong-based company, David Fu, the company secretary, disclosed that the airline had discovered unusual activity on its network back in March 2018. The company then confirmed that their system was hacked in May 2018 (the hacks were revealed to the public for the first time on Wednesday).
A wide variety of personal data was intercepted, including the names, passport numbers, customer service remarks and historical travel records of Cathay Pacific passengers, among other personal information. In total, approximately 860,000 passport numbers and about 245,000 Hong Kong identity card numbers were accessed, as well as information related to 430 credit cards.
According to BBC, Cathay Pacific Chief Executive Officer Rupert Hogg apologized and claimed there is no proof the passengers’ information has been misused. More importantly, no passwords were successfully penetrated and the 430 credit cards that were accessed were either expired or failed to obtain the card verification number (CVV), which is the three-to-four digit number located on the front or back of a credit card.
Cathay Pacific operates out of Hong Kong International Airport, and has flight routes to over 50 different countries and regions. The airline also flies to more than 20 cities on the Chinese mainland, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
The Oneworld alliance member is not the first airline to have their data compromised, with Air Canada and British Airways also suffering data hacks in recent months.
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[Cover image via Jp Valery/Unsplash]
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