STORY: Qantas says six million customer accounts have been exposed in a cyber attack.
The Australian airline said Wednesday (July 2) that a hacker targeted a call center, and gained access to a third-party customer service platform.
That contained data including names, email addresses, birthdates and more.
Qantas didn’t disclose the location of the call center, but says it acted immediately after detecting the breach.
Last week, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said cybercrime group Scattered Spider was targeting airlines.
It said Hawaiian Airlines and Canada’s WestJet had already reported attacks.
Though it wasn’t clear Wednesday whether the same group was also behind the new incident.
The hack could hardly come at a worse moment for Qantas, which has been trying to win back public trust after a series of controversies.
That includes a legal ruling that it illegally sacked thousands of ground staff during the Covid pandemic.
The airline also had to admit selling thousands of tickets for flights it knew it had already cancelled.
Such incidents have seen it tumble down airline and brand league tables.
On Wednesday, shares in the company were down over 2% by midafternoon following news of the hack.
