45 lakh Air India passengers' credit card details leaked, passparts and phone numbers hacked for the past 10 years

Important information of 45 lakh Air India customers has been reportedly stolen. Credit cards, passports and phone numbers have been stolen in the cyber attack.

New Delhi. If you have also travelled by state airlines Air India as well as airlines like Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa and Cathe Pacific, this news has upset you. There has been a major cyber attack on the world's largest airlines. Important information of 45 lakh Air India customers has been reportedly stolen. Credit cards, passports and phone numbers have been stolen in the cyber attack. In addition, customer names, date of birth, contact information and ticket information have also been stolen. Hackers have stolen data for the entire 10 years. Air India has confirmed the hacking. 

Air India has announced that there have been large scale cyber attacks on its data processors in February. It has leaked ten years of data of Air India customers including credit cards, passports and phone numbers. The hacking has stolen data of about 4.5 lakh customers registered between August 26, 2011 and February 3, 2021. Air India has revealed the data theft nearly three months after it was first reported.

Apart from Air India, these foreign airlines are also affected 

The Geneva-based passenger system operator targets SITA in the biggest cyber attack so far. The company serves the Star Alliance of airlines including Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa and United besides Air India. 

Air India said in an email to customers. "SITA our data processor of PSS passenger service system (which is responsible for storing and processing personal information of passengers) is recently aware of the cyber attack. The incident had affected about 4,500,000 data. "

"We received the first information in this regard from our data processor on 25.02.2021, we want to clarify that the identity of the affected data topics was provided only by our data processor on 25.03.2021 and 5.04.221," Air India said. This hacking involved personal data registered between 26 August 2011 and 3 February 2021. This included name, date of birth, contact information, passport information, ticket information, constant flyer data of Star Alliance and Air India (but no password data was affected). However, CVV/CVC numbers have not been stolen. " Air India said it has started an investigation into the incident and has taken steps including securing compromised servers, involving external experts of data security incidents, contacting credit card issuers and reset passwords of its persistent flyer programme.