United Airlines hacking linked to China
A group of hackers with alleged ties to the Chinese establishment managed to hack into United Airlines’ systems, says a Bloomberg report.
Citing unnamed sources, the report said the carrier suffered a data breach in May or June by hackers who were also responsible for infiltrating the US Office of Personnel Management and health insurer Anthem Inc.
Data stolen from United includes flight manifests, but is unclear to what extent as investigators are still trying to determine the scale of the breach.
United Airlines spokesman Luke Punzenberger would not comment on the breach but said the airline remains ‘vigilant in protecting against unauthorised access’.
Investigators have found no link between the breach and the July 8 system outage which grounded flights for two hours.
After Bloomberg asked for a comment from the Chinese Embassy in Washington, spokesman Zhu Haiquan said in a statement: "The Chinese government and the personnel in its institutions never engage in any form of cyber attack. We firmly oppose and combat any forms of cyberattacks."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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