Australia’s premier airline, Qantas, reported a massive data breach of 5.7 million customers in a cyber-attack, which had been shared online.
The data leak, according to official sources, has affected dozens of major firms across the country. Some of the major organisations, including Disney, Google, IKEA, Toyota, McDonald's and fellow airlines Air France and KLM have also reported the data theft in a cyberattack, with sensitive information now being held to ransom.
The software firm Salesforce said this month that it was "aware of recent extortion attempts by threat actors". Qantas confirmed that hackers had targeted one of its customer contact centres, breaching a computer system used by the external party salesforces.
They secured access to sensitive information such as customer names, email addresses, phone numbers and birthdays, the blue-chip Australian company said. While there were fears of critical data being compromised in the attack, Qantas clarified that it had not stored passport numbers and credit details in the system.
No further breaches have taken place since, and the company is cooperating with Australian security services. The company statement on Sunday said that "Qantas is one of several companies globally that have had data released by cybercriminals following the airline's cyber incident in early July, where customer data was stolen via a third-party platform."
However, “With the help of cybersecurity experts, we are investigating what data was part of the release,” the statement said. Cybersecurity analysts have linked the hack to individuals with ties to an alliance of cybercriminals called Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters.
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