British Airways announced on Sunday it had frozen thousands of frequent flyer accounts after becoming aware its systems had been hacked on a mass scale from an unknown source.
RT reports: The airline maintained that although the affected accounts number in the tens of thousands, no personal details of frequent flyers had been accessed or stolen. BA issued an apology to customers, saying the accounts would be freed up within a few days.
The source of the hack is unknown, but it is believed to have been carried out using a computer program that infiltrated BA’s systems in search of vulnerabilities, before penetrating online security.
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In a statement, a BA spokesperson said: “British Airways has become aware of some unauthorized activity in relation to a small number of frequent-flyer executive club accounts. This appears to have been the result of a third party using information obtained elsewhere on the internet, via an automated process, to try to gain access to some accounts.
“We would like to reassure customers that at this stage we are not aware of any access to any subsequent information pages within accounts, including travel histories or payment-card details.”
“We are sorry for the concern and inconvenience this matter has caused and would like to reassure customers that we are taking this incident seriously and have taken a number of steps to lock down accounts so they can no longer be accessed.”
