Airbus hit by cyber attack, says no impact on operations

Airbus has become the latest aviation business to be hacked after it discovered a data breach in its commercial aircraft information systems. The European aircraft manufacturer said the breach had no impact on its commercial operations. “This incident is being thoroughly investigated by Airbus’ experts who have taken immediate and appropriate actions to reinforce existing security measures and to mitigate its potential impact, as well as determining its origins,’’ the company said in a statement. “Investigations are ongoing to understand if any specific data was targeted, however we do know some personal data was accessed. “This is mostly professional contact and IT identification details of some Airbus employees in Europe.” Airbus said it was in contact with the relevant regulatory authorities and the data protection authorities pursuant to Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR). Airbus employees were being advised to take all necessary precautions, it said. The incident is the latest in a string of breaches suffered by aviation a non-aviation companies alike. Cathay Pacific in 2018 revealed hackers had accessed the data of 9.4 million customers. Data accessed by the hackers included passenger name, nationality, date of birth, phone number, email address, postal address, travel document and/or passport number, identity card number, and frequent flyer membership number. The accessed data accessed varied by affected passenger and Cathay’s analysis revealed it was limited in most cases to either passenger name and phone number or passenger name and email. READ Cathay says no sign of hacked passenger details on the dark web The data breach came despite spending by Cathay of more than $HK1 billion on IT infrastructure and security in the previous three years. Prior to that,  British Airways announced the personal details of some 380,000 passengers had been accessed. On online support partner for Delta Air Lines was also compromised in 2017. Companies outside the aviation industry to announce breaches included Macy’s, Adidas, Sears and Kmart.