Major Australian airline Qantas has disclosed having been contacted by a suspected threat actor following last week's major network breach that compromised up to 6 million customers' records, according to The Guardian.
Efforts to validate the legitimacy of the potential cybercriminal who made contact are already underway, noted Qantas, which has also informed the Australian police regarding the development. "There is no evidence that any personal data stolen from Qantas has been released but, with the support of specialist cyber security experts, we continue to actively monitor," said a Qantas spokesperson, who has not detailed whether the airline has been demanded a ransom in exchange for the pilfered data. While details regarding the perpetrator of the intrusion remain murky, such an attack was noted to have overlaps with the Scattered Spider ransomware gang, which was recently reported to have begun targeting aviation and transportation organizations after a spate of incidents aimed at the retail sector.
Efforts to validate the legitimacy of the potential cybercriminal who made contact are already underway, noted Qantas, which has also informed the Australian police regarding the development. "There is no evidence that any personal data stolen from Qantas has been released but, with the support of specialist cyber security experts, we continue to actively monitor," said a Qantas spokesperson, who has not detailed whether the airline has been demanded a ransom in exchange for the pilfered data. While details regarding the perpetrator of the intrusion remain murky, such an attack was noted to have overlaps with the Scattered Spider ransomware gang, which was recently reported to have begun targeting aviation and transportation organizations after a spate of incidents aimed at the retail sector.
