SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian airline Qantas said Sunday that data from 5.7 million customers stolen in a major cyberattack this year had been shared online, part of a leak affecting dozens of firms.
Disney, Google, IKEA, Toyota, McDonald’s and fellow airlines Air France and KLM are also reported to have had data stolen in a cyberattack targeting software firm Salesforce, with the information now being held to ransom.
Salesforce said this month it was “aware of recent extortion attempts by threat actors”.
Qantas confirmed in July that hackers had targeted one of its customer contact centres, breaching a computer system used by a third party now known to have been Salesforce.
They secured access to sensitive information such as customer names, email addresses, phone numbers and birthdays, the blue-chip Australian company said.
No further breaches have taken place since and the company is cooperating with Australian security services.
“Qantas is one of a number of companies globally that has had data released by cyber criminals following the airline’s cyber incident in early July, where customer data was stolen via a third party platform,” the company said in a statement.
Most of the data leaked was names, email addresses and frequent flyer details, the firm said.
In response to questions about the leak, tech giant Google pointed AFP to an August statement in which it said one of its corporate Salesforce servers had been targeted. It did not confirm if the data had been leaked.
The hack of data from Australia’s biggest airline comes as a string of major cyberattacks in the country has raised concerns about the protection of personal data.
Qantas apologized last year after a glitch with its mobile app exposed some passengers’ names and travel details.
And major ports handling 40 percent of Australia’s freight trade ground to a halt in 2023 after hackers infiltrated computers belonging to operator DP World.