Cathay Pacific announces data leak: 9.4 million passengers affected

As the Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific announced on October 24, unauthorised access to a system containing data of up to 9.4 million passengers has been discovered. The data leak was detected during a routine check and immediately reported to the authorities and the police. As reported by the airline, no personal information has been misused.

According to Cathay Pacific CEO Rupert Hogg, the airline immediately initiated a thorough investigation with the support of a cybersecurity firm and wants to further strengthen their IT security measures.

Among the concerned data are: passenger names; nationalities; phone numbers; passport numbers and identity card numbers. But “no –one’s travel or loyalty profile was accessed in full, and no passwords were compromised”, said Hogg.

In its statement, Cathay Pacific underlined that the systems concerned are completely separate from the flight operating system and that flight safety is not affected.