Data containing the personal information of 9 million Cathay Pacific passengers may have been stolen

Cathay Pacific (CPCAY) announced late Wednesday that a hacker has passed through the airlines’ information system containing more than 9 millions of passengers’ names, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, and passport numbers, as reported by CNN.

The hacking activity was first suspected in March and investigation was immediately underway. In May, the hacking is confirmed and since then, the airline has been doing damage control action by analyzing which data has been compromised and contacting affected people.

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The data breach included roughly 860,000 passport numbers and 245,000 Hong Kong identity card numbers.

Cathay’s hackers managed to gain access to 27 credit card numbers without the cards’ security codes, and another 403 expired credit card numbers. The airlines claimed that there’s no evidence that any personal data has been misused.

“We are very sorry for any concern this data security event may cause our passengers,” CEO Rupert Hogg said in a statement.

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The airline said that it has worked alongside Hong Kong’s police and provide call center as well as platform infosecurity.cathaypacific.com for customers who suspected they have become victims.

Today Cathay shares reportedly dropped more than 5% in morning trading following the hacking confirmation.

It is not the first time this year commercial airlines suffer such incident. Just last month, British Airways admitted that hackers stole the payment card details of 380,000 of its customers.
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Image Credit: Cathay Pacific

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