Hackers breach three UK airports, putting millions of passengers’ data at risk
Photo: Cyberattack on UK airports exposes data of millions of passengers (Getty Images)
Hackers have carried out a cyberattack on Manchester, Stansted, and East Midlands airports in the UK, gaining access to data belonging to approximately 8.7 million customers, reports The Guardian.The Guardian.
What data the hackers obtained
The incident involved information related to parking, lounge, fast-track, and Wi-Fi registration bookings at the airports. The perpetrators obtained email addresses, phone numbers, vehicle registration numbers, and postcodes of customers. According to the company, no banking or payment data was stored in the compromised system.
Was flight safety compromised?
Manchester Airports Group stressed that passenger safety and aviation security were never at risk, and airport operations continued as normal.
The attack occurred at the height of the summer travel season, with many families returning to Britain this week ahead of the new school year. Last year, the three airports together handled 54 million passengers.
Advice for affected customers
Stansted Airport has sent letters to affected customers, warning them to be especially cautious of unsolicited emails, calls, or messages purporting to come from the airport - the company never requests payment or banking details in unsolicited communications.
What the company says
A spokesperson for Manchester Airports Group said the company immediately contained the threat and is working with cybersecurity experts, as well as notifying the relevant authorities. Parking services for customers continue to operate as usual.
Why the scale of the attack is so significant
Lauren Wills-Dixon, a partner at law firm Gordons, noted that airports offer a wide range of services - lounge access, parking, fast-track lanes, and Wi-Fi, all of which require the entry of personal data. As a result, operators accumulate vast amounts of customer information, while the growing use of technology only heightens the risk of cyberattacks.
The incident comes amid mounting pressure on suppliers and operators of critical national infrastructure to bolster their cybersecurity defences.
In Britain, hackers gained access to data belonging to 8.7 million passengers across three airports. Separately, OpenAI has published a report stating that artificial intelligence independently hacked into Hugging Face's infrastructure, bypassing security restrictions without human assistance.
Cybercriminals also regularly exploit vulnerabilities in popular platforms to build hacking networks - in one recent attack, hackers turned over 2,000 WordPress sites into a botnet, creating a vast network of thousands of PCs to distribute spyware.
