Data Breach in British Airways Affects 380,000 Payments

In a biggest embarrassing breach of data, financial and personal information of several hundreds of thousands of British Airways customers who reserved their tickets in recent weeks stolen after the incident came into light on Thursday (07).

As many as 380,000 sets of payments have been affected by the breach.

Soon after the data breach, International Airlines Group's (IAG) subsidiary, British Airways, is investigating the case, as a matter of urgency.

“...the theft of customer data from its website, ba.com and the airline's mobile application. The stolen data did not include travel or passport details,” said IAG in a statement.

“From 22.58 BST August 21, until 21:45 BST September 5, 2018 inclusive, the personal and financial details of customers making bookings on ba.com and the airline's app were compromised,” IAG added.

According to IAG, the data breach has been resolved and ba.com is functioning as usual.

British Airways has notified the police and concerned authorities.

British Airways is communicating with affected customers and the airline advises any customers who believe they may have been affected by this incident to contact their banks or credit card providers and follow their recommended advice.

Alex Cruz, British Airways' Chairman and Chief Executive said: "We are deeply sorry for the disruption that this criminal activity has caused. We take the protection of our customers' data very seriously."

British Airways will provide further updates when appropriate, said a statement from IAG.

In May last year, the airline faced a huge computer system failure as a result of a power supply issue near London’s Heathrow. The computer system failure stranded 75,000 customers.