Up to 6M potentially compromised by Qantas hack

Qantas, Australia's flag carrier, has disclosed that up to 6 million individuals may have had their data exposed following a cyberattack against its contact center's third-party platform, according to The Guardian.

Investigation into the extent of the breach is still underway but the affected system, which has already been secured, was noted to include customers' names, birthdates, phone numbers, email addresses, and frequent flyer numbers, but not their financial or credit card details, and passport data. Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson said that updates will be promptly provided to customers as the probe moves along. Additional details regarding the intrusion's perpetrators remain uncertain but the attack is believed to resemble previous incursions of the Scattered Spider ransomware gang, which the FBI recently warned to have been targeting organizations in the aviation industry. Such a development comes as the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner reported a 25% in disclosed data breaches across the country between 2023 and 2024.