Australian airline Qantas says customer data stolen by cybercriminal

Australian airline Qantas said on Wednesday that a hacker made off with a trove of customers’ personal data, including names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth and frequent-flyer numbers.

In a statement, the company said a cyber-criminal had targeted one of its call centres on Monday and gained access to a third-party customer-service platform holding records for six million passengers.

Qantas apologised to customers and said that, while it is still investigating the extent of the breach, “we expect it will be significant”. The breached system did not contain credit-card or passport details, or other personal financial information. Frequent-flyer accounts were not compromised and security credentials were not accessed, Qantas added.

Australia’s biggest airline said there was no impact on its operations or safety. “We sincerely apologise to our customers and we recognise the uncertainty this will cause,” said Chief Executive Vanessa Hudson. Qantas said it had tightened security measures.asures and notified Australian cyber and data privacy authorities and the federal police.