LONDON: British Airways was forced to apologise on Friday after the credit card details of hundreds of thousands of its customers were stolen over a two-week period in the worst ever attack on its website and app.
The airline discovered on Wednesday that bookings made between August 21 and September 5 had been infiltrated in a “very sophisticated, malicious criminal” attack, BA Chairman and Chief Executive Alex Cruz said. It immediately contacted customers when the extent of the breach became clear.
Around 380,000 card payments were compromised, the airline said, with hackers obtaining names, street and email addresses, credit card numbers, expiry dates and security codes — sufficient information to steal from accounts.
The attack came 15 months after the carrier suffered a massive computer system failure at London’s Heathrow airport, which stranded 75,000 customers over a holiday weekend. — Reuters
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