Newsroom
Qantas Airways is investigating a serious cyberattack after hackers breached a third-party call center system and may have accessed personal information belonging to up to six million customers, the airline announced Wednesday.
In a press release, Australia’s flagship carrier said it discovered “unusual activity” on June 30 on a platform used by one of its external partners to store customer information. The data potentially exposed includes names, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, and frequent flyer membership details.
“We’re still investigating the volume of data that may have been stolen, but we expect it to be significant,” the company said.
Qantas acted quickly to contain the breach by isolating the affected system, and confirmed that no critical information, such as passport numbers, credit card details, PINs or account passwords, was stored on the compromised platform.
The airline said it has already begun reaching out to impacted passengers and has set up a dedicated hotline for customers with concerns.
Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson apologized for the breach, acknowledging the inconvenience and stress it may cause passengers. “We understand how important trust is, and we’re treating this incident with the utmost seriousness,” she said.
The breach comes just days after the FBI issued a warning about an aggressive cybercrime group known as Scattered Spider, which has reportedly been targeting the aviation sector. In the past two weeks alone, U.S.-based Hawaiian Airlines and Canada’s WestJet were also hit by similar attacks.
Despite the breach, Qantas stressed that flight operations and customer services have not been affected.
The company said it is continuing its investigation in coordination with cybersecurity experts and authorities.
*With information from The Guardian
