Breach, Compliance Management, Threat Management, Data Security, Privacy

Teen nets $150K from Chinese airline hack

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A Chinese teenager hacked into the website of a Chinese airline, stole the information of hundreds of passengers and then used it to defraud them into paying additional fees for their flights, netting a cool $150,000 for his efforts.

The 19-year-old hacker, identified only as Zhang, made off with 1.6 million pieces of booking information including names, ID card numbers, phone numbers, email addresses and flight information in a scheme executed between July 31 and August 20 that exploited a vulnerability in the unnamed airline's computer systems, according to People's Daily Online.

The report said the targeted airline lost roughly $12,365 in refunds to passengers affected.

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